Automatic placement of a virtual object in a three-dimensional space

ABSTRACT

Augmented reality systems and methods for automatically repositioning a virtual object with respect to a destination object in a three-dimensional (3D) environment of a user are disclosed. The systems and methods can automatically attach the target virtual object to the destination object and re-orient the target virtual object based on the affordances of the virtual object or the destination object. The systems and methods can also track the movement of a user and detach the virtual object from the destination object when the user&#39;s movement passes a threshold condition.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.16/821,653, filed on Mar. 17, 2020, entitled “AUTOMATIC PLACEMENT OF AVIRTUAL OBJECT IN A THREE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE,” which is a continuation ofU.S. application Ser. No. 15/673,135, filed on Aug. 9, 2017, entitled“AUTOMATIC PLACEMENT OF A VIRTUAL OBJECT IN A THREE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE,”which claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/373,693, filed on Aug. 11, 2016, entitled“AUTOMATIC PLACEMENT OF VIRTUAL OBJECTS IN A 3D ENVIRONMENT,” and U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/373,692, filed on Aug. 11, 2016, entitled“VIRTUAL OBJECT USER INTERFACE WITH GRAVITY”, the disclosures of whichare hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

FIELD

The present disclosure relates to virtual reality and augmented realityimaging and visualization systems and more particularly to automaticallyrepositioning a virtual object in a three-dimensional (3D) space.

BACKGROUND

Modern computing and display technologies have facilitated thedevelopment of systems for so called “virtual reality”, “augmentedreality”, or “mixed reality” experiences, wherein digitally reproducedimages or portions thereof are presented to a user in a manner whereinthey seem to be, or may be perceived as, real. A virtual reality, or“VR”, scenario typically involves presentation of digital or virtualimage information without transparency to other actual real-world visualinput; an augmented reality, or “AR”, scenario typically involvespresentation of digital or virtual image information as an augmentationto visualization of the actual world around the user; a mixed reality,or “MR”, related to merging real and virtual worlds to produce newenvironments where physical and virtual objects co-exist and interact inreal time. As it turns out, the human visual perception system is verycomplex, and producing a VR, AR, or MR technology that facilitates acomfortable, natural-feeling, rich presentation of virtual imageelements amongst other virtual or real-world imagery elements ischallenging. Systems and methods disclosed herein address variouschallenges related to VR, AR and MR technology.

SUMMARY

Various embodiments of an augmented reality system for automaticallyrepositioning a virtual object are described.

In one example embodiment, an augmented reality (AR) system forautomatically repositioning a virtual object in a three-dimensional (3D)environment is disclosed. The AR system comprises an AR displayconfigured to present virtual content in a 3D view and a hardwareprocessor in communication with the AR display. The hardware processoris programmed to: identify a target virtual object in the 3D environmentof the user, wherein the target virtual object is assigned one vectorrepresenting a first location and a first orientation; receive anindication to attach the target virtual object to a destination object,wherein the destination object is assigned at least one vectorrepresenting a second location and a second orientation; calculate atrajectory between the target virtual object and the destination objectbased at least partly on the first location and the second location;move the target virtual object along the trajectory towards thedestination object; track a current location of the target virtualobject; calculate a distance between the target virtual object and thedestination object based at least partly on the current location of thetarget virtual object and the second location; determine whether thedistance of the target virtual object and the destination virtual objectis less than a threshold distance; automatically attach the targetvirtual object to the destination object and orient the target virtualobject to the second orientation in response to a comparison that thedistance is less than or equal to the threshold distance; and render, bythe AR display, the target virtual object at the second location withthe second orientation where the target virtual object is overlaid onthe destination object.

In another example embodiment, a method for automatically repositioninga virtual object in a three-dimensional (3D) environment is disclosed.The method may be performed under control of an augmented reality (AR)system comprising computer hardware and the AR system configured topermit user interactions with objects in a 3D environment. The methodcomprises: identifying a target virtual object in the user's 3Denvironment, the target virtual object having a first position and afirst orientation; receiving an indication to reposition the targetvirtual object with respect to a destination object; identifyingparameters for repositioning the target virtual object; analyzingaffordances associated with at least one of the 3D environment, thetarget virtual object, and the destination object; calculating values ofthe parameters for repositioning the target virtual object based on theaffordances; determining a second position and a second orientation forthe target virtual object and a movement of the target virtual objectbased on the values of the parameters for repositioning the targetvirtual object; and rendering the target virtual object at the secondposition and the second orientation and the movement of the targetvirtual object for reaching the second position and the secondorientation from the first position and the first orientation.

Details of one or more implementations of the subject matter describedin this specification are set forth in the accompanying drawings and thedescription below. Other features, aspects, and advantages will becomeapparent from the description, the drawings, and the claims. Neitherthis summary nor the following detailed description purports to defineor limit the scope of the inventive subject matter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts an illustration of a mixed reality scenario with certainvirtual reality objects, and certain physical objects viewed by aperson.

FIG. 2 schematically illustrates an example of a wearable system.

FIG. 3 schematically illustrates aspects of an approach for simulatingthree-dimensional imagery using multiple depth planes.

FIG. 4 schematically illustrates an example of a waveguide stack foroutputting image information to a user.

FIG. 5 shows example exit beams that may be outputted by a waveguide.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an optical system including awaveguide apparatus, an optical coupler subsystem to optically couplelight to or from the waveguide apparatus, and a control subsystem, usedin the generation of a multi-focal volumetric display, image, or lightfield.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example of a wearable system.

FIG. 8 is a process flow diagram of an example of a method of renderingvirtual content in relation to recognized objects.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of another example of a wearable system.

FIG. 10 is a process flow diagram of an example of a method fordetermining user input to a wearable system.

FIG. 11 is a process flow diagram of an example of a method forinteracting with a virtual user interface.

FIGS. 12A and 12B illustrate an example of automatically attaching avirtual object to a table.

FIGS. 13A, 13B, 13C, and 13D illustrate an example of automaticallyorienting a virtual object when a portion of the virtual object touchesa wall.

FIGS. 14A, 14B, 14C, and 14D illustrate an example of moving a virtualobject from a table to a wall.

FIGS. 15A, 15B, and 15C illustrate an example of attaching and orientinga virtual object from a side view.

FIGS. 15D and 15E illustrate an example of detaching a virtual objectfrom a wall.

FIGS. 15F, 15G, and 15H illustrate additional examples of attaching andorienting a virtual object from a side view.

FIG. 16 is an example method for attaching and orienting a virtualobject.

FIG. 17 is an example method for detaching a virtual object from anotherobject in the user's environment.

Throughout the drawings, reference numbers may be re-used to indicatecorrespondence between referenced elements. The drawings are provided toillustrate example embodiments described herein and are not intended tolimit the scope of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Overview

In an AR/MR environment, a user may want to reposition a virtual objectby changing the virtual object's position or orientation. As oneexample, a user can move a virtual object in a three-dimensional (3D)space and attach the virtual object to a physical object in the user'senvironment. The virtual object may be a two-dimensional (2D) or a 3Dobject. For example, the virtual object may be a planar, 2D televisiondisplay or a 3D virtual coffee pot. The user can move the virtual objectalong a trajectory and attach the virtual object to the physical objectby using a user input device (such as, e.g., a totem) and/or by changinga user's pose. For example, the user may move the user input device tocause a virtual television (TV) screen to move from a table to a wall.Similarly, the AR system may allow a user to select and move the virtualobject with a head pose. As the user moves his head, the virtual objectalso moves and is positioned and oriented accordingly.

However, the movements of the virtual objects in the 3D space cansometimes be problematic for a user, because the movements may createoptical illusions which can cause confusion for the user regarding hiscurrent position. For example, the user may be confused as to whether anobject is moving away from him or moving toward him. These opticalillusions can cause cognitive fatigue when the user interacts with theAR system.

Furthermore, while a user is attempting to put a virtual object on asurface of a destination object or inside of the destination object, theuser often needs to make refined movements to orient and position thevirtual object in multiple directions in the 3D space to align thevirtual object with the destination object. For example, when the usermoves a virtual TV screen from a table to a wall, the user may need toorient the virtual screen so that the surface normal of the TV screen isfacing the user (e.g., the content displayed by the TV screen is facingthe user instead of the wall). The user may further orient the virtualscreen so that the user doesn't have to turn his head when viewing thevirtual TV screen. In addition, to make the virtual TV screen appear tobe on top of the wall (rather than appearing to be embedded in thewall), the user may need to make small adjustments to the position ofthe virtual TV screen. These manipulations can be time consuming anddifficult for the user to perform with precision, and can cause physicalfatigue for the user.

To solve some or all of these problems, the AR system can be configuredto automatically reposition the target virtual object by changing theposition or orientation of a target virtual object. As one example, theAR system can orient a target virtual object and attach the targetvirtual object to a destination object when the distance between thevirtual object and the target object is less than a threshold distance.The AR system can also automatically reposition the target virtualobject by moving the virtual object as if it were subject to a physicalforce (e.g., a spring force such as Hooke's law, a gravitational force,an adhesive force, an electromagnetic force, etc.). For example, when avirtual object and a target object are within the threshold distance,the AR system may automatically “snap” the virtual object onto thetarget object as if the virtual object and the target object wereattracted together due to an attractive force (e.g., mimicking magneticattraction or gravity). Accordingly, the AR system may apply a virtualforce between objects, wherein the virtual force simulates or acts likea physical force between the objects. Although in many cases the virtual(or simulated physical) force may be attractive, this is not alimitation, and in other cases, the virtual (or simulated physical)force may be repulsive, tending to move the objects away from eachother. A repulsive virtual force may be advantageous when placing atarget virtual object such that other nearby virtual objects arerepelled (at least slightly) from the target object, thereby movingslightly to provide room for the placement of the target virtual objectamong the other, nearby objects.

The AR system may further orient the virtual object to align the surfacenormal of the virtual object with user's direction of gaze. As anexample, a virtual object may initially be floating in the user'senvironment. The user may indicate an intention (e.g., via a bodygesture or activation of a user input device) to move the virtual objectto a horizontal surface such as, e.g., a tabletop or a floor. The ARsystem may simulate the effect of gravity and automatically drop thevirtual object onto the horizontal surface without additional userefforts once the virtual object is sufficiently close to the horizontalsurface.

In some situations, the user may want to detach a virtual object from anobject to which the virtual object is attached. The AR system cansimulate an attractive force between the virtual object and the object(e.g., simulating how a magnet can stick to a magnetic surface such as arefrigerator or how a book lies on a horizontal table) so that the usermay not be able to immediately detach the virtual object from the objectunless the user provides a sufficient indication that the virtual objectshould be detached. For example, the user may “grab” the virtual objectwith his hand or a virtual indicator and “yank” the object (e.g., by asufficiently rapid change of the user's hand position or virtualindicator position). The indication to detach the virtual object may beindicated by movement that is greater than a threshold condition (suchas when the movement passes a threshold distance, a threshold speed, athreshold acceleration, or a threshold rate of change of theacceleration, in combination or the like). This may be particularlyadvantageous, because it reduces the likelihood that the useraccidentally detaches the virtual object while the user is interactingwith the virtual object. As an example, while a user is playing a gameusing a virtual screen attached to the wall, the user may need to movehis totem around to find or interact with friends or enemies. This typeof game movement may coincide with the types of movements for detachingthe virtual object from the wall. By only detaching the virtual objectfrom the wall if the user's movements are sufficiently above a suitablethreshold, the virtual screen will not be inadvertently detached duringgameplay. Additionally, the user usually cannot keep his pose or theuser input device still for long periods of time. As a result, thevirtual object may accidentally be detached by minor movements of theuser when the user does not intend to detach the virtual object.Accordingly, by only detaching the virtual object if the user'smovements are sufficiently above a suitable threshold, minor movementsor twitches by the user will not inadvertently detach virtual objectsfrom their intended location or orientation.

Examples of 3D Display of a Wearable System

A wearable system (also referred to herein as an augmented reality (AR)system) can be configured to present 2D or 3D virtual images to a user.The images may be still images, frames of a video, or a video, incombination or the like. The wearable system can include a wearabledevice that can present a VR, AR, or MR environment, alone or incombination, for user interaction. The wearable device can be ahead-mounted device (HMD) which is used interchangeably as an AR device(ARD). Further, for the purpose of the present disclosure, the term “AR”is used interchangeably with the term “MW”.

FIG. 1 depicts an illustration of a mixed reality scenario with certainvirtual reality objects, and certain physical objects viewed by aperson. In FIG. 1, an MR scene 100 is depicted wherein a user of an MRtechnology sees a real-world park-like setting 110 featuring people,trees, buildings in the background, and a concrete platform 120. Inaddition to these items, the user of the MR technology also perceivesthat he “sees” a robot statue 130 standing upon the real-world platform120, and a cartoon-like avatar character 140 flying by which seems to bea personification of a bumble bee, even though these elements do notexist in the real world.

In order for the 3D display to produce a true sensation of depth, andmore specifically, a simulated sensation of surface depth, it may bedesirable for each point in the display's visual field to generate anaccommodative response corresponding to its virtual depth. If theaccommodative response to a display point does not correspond to thevirtual depth of that point, as determined by the binocular depth cuesof convergence and stereopsis, the human eye may experience anaccommodation conflict, resulting in unstable imaging, harmful eyestrain, headaches, and, in the absence of accommodation information,almost a complete lack of surface depth.

VR, AR, and MR experiences can be provided by display systems havingdisplays in which images corresponding to a plurality of depth planesare provided to a viewer. The images may be different for each depthplane (e.g., provide slightly different presentations of a scene orobject) and may be separately focused by the viewer's eyes, therebyhelping to provide the user with depth cues based on the accommodationof the eye required to bring into focus different image features for thescene located on different depth plane or based on observing differentimage features on different depth planes being out of focus. Asdiscussed elsewhere herein, such depth cues provide credible perceptionsof depth.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of wearable system 200. The wearablesystem 200 includes a display 220, and various mechanical and electronicmodules and systems to support the functioning of display 220. Thedisplay 220 may be coupled to a frame 230, which is wearable by a user,wearer, or viewer 210. The display 220 can be positioned in front of theeyes of the user 210. The display 220 can present AR/VR/MR content to auser. The display 220 can comprise a head mounted display that is wornon the head of the user. In some embodiments, a speaker 240 is coupledto the frame 230 and positioned adjacent the ear canal of the user (insome embodiments, another speaker, not shown, is positioned adjacent theother ear canal of the user to provide for stereo/shapeable soundcontrol). The display 220 can include an audio sensor (e.g., amicrophone) for detecting an audio stream from the environment on whichto perform voice recognition.

The wearable system 200 can include an outward-facing imaging system 464(shown in FIG. 4) which observes the world in the environment around theuser. The wearable system 200 can also include an inward-facing imagingsystem 462 (shown in FIG. 4) which can track the eye movements of theuser. The inward-facing imaging system may track either one eye'smovements or both eyes' movements. The inward-facing imaging system 462may be attached to the frame 230 and may be in electrical communicationwith the processing modules 260 or 270, which may process imageinformation acquired by the inward-facing imaging system to determine,e.g., the pupil diameters or orientations of the eyes, eye movements oreye pose of the user 210.

As an example, the wearable system 200 can use the outward-facingimaging system 464 or the inward-facing imaging system 462 to acquireimages of a pose of the user. The images may be still images, frames ofa video, or a video, in combination or the like.

The display 220 can be operatively coupled 250, such as by a wired leador wireless connectivity, to a local data processing module 260 whichmay be mounted in a variety of configurations, such as fixedly attachedto the frame 230, fixedly attached to a helmet or hat worn by the user,embedded in headphones, or otherwise removably attached to the user 210(e.g., in a backpack-style configuration, in a belt-coupling styleconfiguration).

The local processing and data module 260 may comprise a hardwareprocessor, as well as digital memory, such as non-volatile memory (e.g.,flash memory), both of which may be utilized to assist in theprocessing, caching, and storage of data. The data may include data a)captured from sensors (which may be, e.g., operatively coupled to theframe 230 or otherwise attached to the user 210), such as image capturedevices (e.g., cameras in the inward-facing imaging system or theoutward-facing imaging system), audio sensors (e.g., microphones),inertial measurement units (IMUs), accelerometers, compasses, globalpositioning system (GPS) units, radio devices, or gyroscopes; or b)acquired or processed using remote processing module 270 or remote datarepository 280, possibly for passage to the display 220 after suchprocessing or retrieval. The local processing and data module 260 may beoperatively coupled by communication links 262 or 264, such as via wiredor wireless communication links, to the remote processing module 270 orremote data repository 280 such that these remote modules are availableas resources to the local processing and data module 260. In addition,remote processing module 280 and remote data repository 280 may beoperatively coupled to each other.

In some embodiments, the remote processing module 270 may comprise oneor more processors configured to analyze and process data or imageinformation. In some embodiments, the remote data repository 280 maycomprise a digital data storage facility, which may be available throughthe internet or other networking configuration in a “cloud” resourceconfiguration. In some embodiments, all data is stored and allcomputations are performed in the local processing and data module,allowing fully autonomous use from a remote module.

The human visual system is complicated and providing a realisticperception of depth is challenging. Without being limited by theory, itis believed that viewers of an object may perceive the object as beingthree-dimensional due to a combination of vergence and accommodation.Vergence movements (i.e., rolling movements of the pupils toward or awayfrom each other to converge the lines of sight of the eyes to fixateupon an object) of the two eyes relative to each other are closelyassociated with focusing (or “accommodation”) of the lenses of the eyes.Under normal conditions, changing the focus of the lenses of the eyes,or accommodating the eyes, to change focus from one object to anotherobject at a different distance will automatically cause a matchingchange in vergence to the same distance, under a relationship known asthe “accommodation-vergence reflex.” Likewise, a change in vergence willtrigger a matching change in accommodation, under normal conditions.Display systems that provide a better match between accommodation andvergence may form more realistic and comfortable simulations ofthree-dimensional imagery.

FIG. 3 illustrates aspects of an approach for simulating athree-dimensional imagery using multiple depth planes. With reference toFIG. 3, objects at various distances from eyes 302 and 304 on the z-axisare accommodated by the eyes 302 and 304 so that those objects are infocus. The eyes 302 and 304 assume particular accommodated states tobring into focus objects at different distances along the z-axis.Consequently, a particular accommodated state may be said to beassociated with a particular one of depth planes 306, which has anassociated focal distance, such that objects or parts of objects in aparticular depth plane are in focus when the eye is in the accommodatedstate for that depth plane. In some embodiments, three-dimensionalimagery may be simulated by providing different presentations of animage for each of the eyes 302 and 304, and also by providing differentpresentations of the image corresponding to each of the depth planes.While shown as being separate for clarity of illustration, it will beappreciated that the fields of view of the eyes 302 and 304 may overlap,for example, as distance along the z-axis increases. In addition, whileshown as flat for the ease of illustration, it will be appreciated thatthe contours of a depth plane may be curved in physical space, such thatall features in a depth plane are in focus with the eye in a particularaccommodated state. Without being limited by theory, it is believed thatthe human eye typically can interpret a finite number of depth planes toprovide depth perception. Consequently, a highly believable simulationof perceived depth may be achieved by providing, to the eye, differentpresentations of an image corresponding to each of these limited numberof depth planes.

Waveguide Stack Assembly

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a waveguide stack for outputting imageinformation to a user. A wearable system 400 includes a stack ofwaveguides, or stacked waveguide assembly 480 that may be utilized toprovide three-dimensional perception to the eye/brain using a pluralityof waveguides 432 b, 434 b, 436 b, 438 b, 4400 b. In some embodiments,the wearable system 400 may correspond to wearable system 200 of FIG. 2,with FIG. 4 schematically showing some parts of that wearable system 200in greater detail. For example, in some embodiments, the waveguideassembly 480 may be integrated into the display 220 of FIG. 2.

With continued reference to FIG. 4, the waveguide assembly 480 may alsoinclude a plurality of features 458, 456, 454, 452 between thewaveguides. In some embodiments, the features 458, 456, 454, 452 may belenses. In other embodiments, the features 458, 456, 454, 452 may not belenses. Rather, they may simply be spacers (e.g., cladding layers orstructures for forming air gaps).

The waveguides 432 b, 434 b, 436 b, 438 b, 440 b or the plurality oflenses 458, 456, 454, 452 may be configured to send image information tothe eye with various levels of wavefront curvature or light raydivergence. Each waveguide level may be associated with a particulardepth plane and may be configured to output image informationcorresponding to that depth plane. Image injection devices 420, 422,424, 426, 428 may be utilized to inject image information into thewaveguides 440 b, 438 b, 436 b, 434 b, 432 b, each of which may beconfigured to distribute incoming light across each respectivewaveguide, for output toward the eye 410. Light exits an output surfaceof the image injection devices 420, 422, 424, 426, 428 and is injectedinto a corresponding input edge of the waveguides 440 b, 438 b, 436 b,434 b, 432 b. In some embodiments, a single beam of light (e.g., acollimated beam) may be injected into each waveguide to output an entirefield of cloned collimated beams that are directed toward the eye 410 atparticular angles (and amounts of divergence) corresponding to the depthplane associated with a particular waveguide.

In some embodiments, the image injection devices 420, 422, 424, 426, 428are discrete displays that each produce image information for injectioninto a corresponding waveguide 440 b, 438 b, 436 b, 434 b, 432 b,respectively. In some other embodiments, the image injection devices420, 422, 424, 426, 428 are the output ends of a single multiplexeddisplay which may, e.g., pipe image information via one or more opticalconduits (such as fiber optic cables) to each of the image injectiondevices 420, 422, 424, 426, 428.

A controller 460 controls the operation of the stacked waveguideassembly 480 and the image injection devices 420, 422, 424, 426, 428.The controller 460 includes programming (e.g., instructions in anon-transitory computer-readable medium) that regulates the timing andprovision of image information to the waveguides 440 b, 438 b, 436 b,434 b, 432 b. In some embodiments, the controller 460 may be a singleintegral device, or a distributed system connected by wired or wirelesscommunication channels. The controller 460 may be part of the processingmodules 260 or 270 (illustrated in FIG. 2) in some embodiments.

The waveguides 440 b, 438 b, 436 b, 434 b, 432 b may be configured topropagate light within each respective waveguide by total internalreflection (TIR). The waveguides 440 b, 438 b, 436 b, 434 b, 432 b mayeach be planar or have another shape (e.g., curved), with major top andbottom surfaces and edges extending between those major top and bottomsurfaces. In the illustrated configuration, the waveguides 440 b, 438 b,436 b, 434 b, 432 b may each include light extracting optical elements440 a, 438 a, 436 a, 434 a, 432 a that are configured to extract lightout of a waveguide by redirecting the light, propagating within eachrespective waveguide, out of the waveguide to output image informationto the eye 410. Extracted light may also be referred to as outcoupledlight, and light extracting optical elements may also be referred to asoutcoupling optical elements. An extracted beam of light is outputted bythe waveguide at locations at which the light propagating in thewaveguide strikes a light redirecting element. The light extractingoptical elements (440 a, 438 a, 436 a, 434 a, 432 a) may, for example,be reflective or diffractive optical features. While illustrateddisposed at the bottom major surfaces of the waveguides 440 b, 438 b,436 b, 434 b, 432 b for ease of description and drawing clarity, in someembodiments, the light extracting optical elements 440 a, 438 a, 436 a,434 a, 432 a may be disposed at the top or bottom major surfaces, or maybe disposed directly in the volume of the waveguides 440 b, 438 b, 436b, 434 b, 432 b. In some embodiments, the light extracting opticalelements 440 a, 438 a, 436 a, 434 a, 432 a may be formed in a layer ofmaterial that is attached to a transparent substrate to form thewaveguides 440 b, 438 b, 436 b, 434 b, 432 b. In some other embodiments,the waveguides 440 b, 438 b, 436 b, 434 b, 432 b may be a monolithicpiece of material and the light extracting optical elements 440 a, 438a, 436 a, 434 a, 432 a may be formed on a surface or in the interior ofthat piece of material.

With continued reference to FIG. 4, as discussed herein, each waveguide440 b, 438 b, 436 b, 434 b, 432 b is configured to output light to forman image corresponding to a particular depth plane. For example, thewaveguide 432 b nearest the eye may be configured to deliver collimatedlight, as injected into such waveguide 432 b, to the eye 410. Thecollimated light may be representative of the optical infinity focalplane. The next waveguide up 434 b may be configured to send outcollimated light which passes through the first lens 452 (e.g., anegative lens) before it can reach the eye 410. First lens 452 may beconfigured to create a slight convex wavefront curvature so that theeye/brain interprets light coming from that next waveguide up 434 b ascoming from a first focal plane closer inward toward the eye 410 fromoptical infinity. Similarly, the third up waveguide 436 b passes itsoutput light through both the first lens 452 and second lens 454 beforereaching the eye 410. The combined optical power of the first and secondlenses 452 and 454 may be configured to create another incrementalamount of wavefront curvature so that the eye/brain interprets lightcoming from the third waveguide 436 b as coming from a second focalplane that is even closer inward toward the person from optical infinitythan was light from the next waveguide up 434 b.

The other waveguide layers (e.g., waveguides 438 b, 440 b) and lenses(e.g., lenses 456, 458) are similarly configured, with the highestwaveguide 440 b in the stack sending its output through all of thelenses between it and the eye for an aggregate focal powerrepresentative of the closest focal plane to the person. To compensatefor the stack of lenses 458, 456, 454, 452 when viewing/interpretinglight coming from the world 470 on the other side of the stackedwaveguide assembly 480, a compensating lens layer 430 may be disposed atthe top of the stack to compensate for the aggregate power of the lensstack 458, 456, 454, 452 below. Such a configuration provides as manyperceived focal planes as there are available waveguide/lens pairings.Both the light extracting optical elements of the waveguides and thefocusing aspects of the lenses may be static (e.g., not dynamic orelectro-active). In some alternative embodiments, either or both may bedynamic using electro-active features.

With continued reference to FIG. 4, the light extracting opticalelements 440 a, 438 a, 436 a, 434 a, 432 a may be configured to bothredirect light out of their respective waveguides and to output thislight with the appropriate amount of divergence or collimation for aparticular depth plane associated with the waveguide. As a result,waveguides having different associated depth planes may have differentconfigurations of light extracting optical elements, which output lightwith a different amount of divergence depending on the associated depthplane. In some embodiments, as discussed herein, the light extractingoptical elements 440 a, 438 a, 436 a, 434 a, 432 a may be volumetric orsurface features, which may be configured to output light at specificangles. For example, the light extracting optical elements 440 a, 438 a,436 a, 434 a, 432 a may be volume holograms, surface holograms, and/ordiffraction gratings. Light extracting optical elements, such asdiffraction gratings, are described in U.S. Patent Publication No.2015/0178939, published Jun. 25, 2015, which is incorporated byreference herein in its entirety.

In some embodiments, the light extracting optical elements 440 a, 438 a,436 a, 434 a, 432 a are diffractive features that form a diffractionpattern, or “diffractive optical element” (also referred to herein as a“DOE”). Preferably, the DOE has a relatively low diffraction efficiencyso that only a portion of the light of the beam is deflected away towardthe eye 410 with each intersection of the DOE, while the rest continuesto move through a waveguide via total internal reflection. The lightcarrying the image information can thus be divided into a number ofrelated exit beams that exit the waveguide at a multiplicity oflocations and the result is a fairly uniform pattern of exit emissiontoward the eye 304 for this particular collimated beam bouncing aroundwithin a waveguide.

In some embodiments, one or more DOEs may be switchable between “on”state in which they actively diffract, and “off” state in which they donot significantly diffract. For instance, a switchable DOE may comprisea layer of polymer dispersed liquid crystal, in which microdropletscomprise a diffraction pattern in a host medium, and the refractiveindex of the microdroplets can be switched to substantially match therefractive index of the host material (in which case the pattern doesnot appreciably diffract incident light) or the microdroplet can beswitched to an index that does not match that of the host medium (inwhich case the pattern actively diffracts incident light).

In some embodiments, the number and distribution of depth planes ordepth of field may be varied dynamically based on the pupil sizes ororientations of the eyes of the viewer. Depth of field may changeinversely with a viewer's pupil size. As a result, as the sizes of thepupils of the viewer's eyes decrease, the depth of field increases suchthat one plane that is not discernible because the location of thatplane is beyond the depth of focus of the eye may become discernible andappear more in focus with reduction of pupil size and commensurate withthe increase in depth of field. Likewise, the number of spaced apartdepth planes used to present different images to the viewer may bedecreased with the decreased pupil size. For example, a viewer may notbe able to clearly perceive the details of both a first depth plane anda second depth plane at one pupil size without adjusting theaccommodation of the eye away from one depth plane and to the otherdepth plane. These two depth planes may, however, be sufficiently infocus at the same time to the user at another pupil size withoutchanging accommodation.

In some embodiments, the display system may vary the number ofwaveguides receiving image information based upon determinations ofpupil size or orientation, or upon receiving electrical signalsindicative of particular pupil size or orientation. For example, if theuser's eyes are unable to distinguish between two depth planesassociated with two waveguides, then the controller 460 (which may be anembodiment of the local processing and data module 260) can beconfigured or programmed to cease providing image information to one ofthese waveguides. Advantageously, this may reduce the processing burdenon the system, thereby increasing the responsiveness of the system. Inembodiments in which the DOEs for a waveguide are switchable between theon and off states, the DOEs may be switched to the off state when thewaveguide does receive image information.

In some embodiments, it may be desirable to have an exit beam meet thecondition of having a diameter that is less than the diameter of the eyeof a viewer. However, meeting this condition may be challenging in viewof the variability in size of the viewer's pupils. In some embodiments,this condition is met over a wide range of pupil sizes by varying thesize of the exit beam in response to determinations of the size of theviewer's pupil. For example, as the pupil size decreases, the size ofthe exit beam may also decrease. In some embodiments, the exit beam sizemay be varied using a variable aperture.

The wearable system 400 can include an outward-facing imaging system 464(e.g., a digital camera) that images a portion of the world 470. Thisportion of the world 470 may be referred to as the field of view (FOV)of a world camera and the imaging system 464 is sometimes referred to asan FOV camera. The entire region available for viewing or imaging by aviewer may be referred to as the field of regard (FOR). The FOR mayinclude 4π steradians of solid angle surrounding the wearable system 400because the wearer can move his body, head, or eyes to perceivesubstantially any direction in space. In other contexts, the wearer'smovements may be more constricted, and accordingly the wearer's FOR maysubtend a smaller solid angle. Images obtained from the outward-facingimaging system 464 can be used to track gestures made by the user (e.g.,hand or finger gestures), detect objects in the world 470 in front ofthe user, and so forth.

The wearable system 400 can also include an inward-facing imaging system466 (e.g., a digital camera), which observes the movements of the user,such as the eye movements and the facial movements. The inward-facingimaging system 466 may be used to capture images of the eye 410 todetermine the size and/or orientation of the pupil of the eye 304. Theinward-facing imaging system 466 can be used to obtain images for use indetermining the direction the user is looking (e.g., eye pose) or forbiometric identification of the user (e.g., via iris identification). Insome embodiments, at least one camera may be utilized for each eye, toseparately determine the pupil size or eye pose of each eyeindependently, thereby allowing the presentation of image information toeach eye to be dynamically tailored to that eye. In some otherembodiments, the pupil diameter or orientation of only a single eye 410(e.g., using only a single camera per pair of eyes) is determined andassumed to be similar for both eyes of the user. The images obtained bythe inward-facing imaging system 466 may be analyzed to determine theuser's eye pose or mood, which can be used by the wearable system 400 todecide which audio or visual content should be presented to the user.The wearable system 400 may also determine head pose (e.g., headposition or head orientation) using sensors such as IMUs,accelerometers, gyroscopes, etc.

The wearable system 400 can include a user input device 466 by which theuser can input commands to the controller 460 to interact with thewearable system 400. For example, the user input device 466 can includea trackpad, a touchscreen, a joystick, a multiple degree-of-freedom(DOF) controller, a capacitive sensing device, a game controller, akeyboard, a mouse, a directional pad (D-pad), a wand, a haptic device, atotem (e.g., functioning as a virtual user input device), and so forth.A multi-DOF controller can sense user input in some or all possibletranslations (e.g., left/right, forward/backward, or up/down) orrotations (e.g., yaw, pitch, or roll) of the controller. A multi-DOFcontroller which supports the translation movements may be referred toas a 3DOF while a multi-DOF controller which supports the translationsand rotations may be referred to as 6DOF. In some cases, the user mayuse a finger (e.g., a thumb) to press or swipe on a touch-sensitiveinput device to provide input to the wearable system 400 (e.g., toprovide user input to a user interface provided by the wearable system400). The user input device 466 may be held by the user's hand duringthe use of the wearable system 400. The user input device 466 can be inwired or wireless communication with the wearable system 400.

FIG. 5 shows an example of exit beams outputted by a waveguide. Onewaveguide is illustrated, but it will be appreciated that otherwaveguides in the waveguide assembly 480 may function similarly, wherethe waveguide assembly 480 includes multiple waveguides. Light 520 isinjected into the waveguide 432 b at the input edge 432 c of thewaveguide 432 b and propagates within the waveguide 432 b by TIR. Atpoints where the light 520 impinges on the DOE 432 a, a portion of thelight exits the waveguide as exit beams 510. The exit beams 510 areillustrated as substantially parallel but they may also be redirected topropagate to the eye 410 at an angle (e.g., forming divergent exitbeams), depending on the depth plane associated with the waveguide 432b. It will be appreciated that substantially parallel exit beams may beindicative of a waveguide with light extracting optical elements thatoutcouple light to form images that appear to be set on a depth plane ata large distance (e.g., optical infinity) from the eye 410. Otherwaveguides or other sets of light extracting optical elements may outputan exit beam pattern that is more divergent, which would require the eye410 to accommodate to a closer distance to bring it into focus on theretina and would be interpreted by the brain as light from a distancecloser to the eye 410 than optical infinity.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an optical system including awaveguide apparatus, an optical coupler subsystem to optically couplelight to or from the waveguide apparatus, and a control subsystem, usedin the generation of a multi-focal volumetric display, image, or lightfield. The optical system can include a waveguide apparatus, an opticalcoupler subsystem to optically couple light to or from the waveguideapparatus, and a control subsystem. The optical system can be used togenerate a multi-focal volumetric, image, or light field. The opticalsystem can include one or more primary planar waveguides 632 a (only oneis shown in FIG. 6) and one or more DOEs 632 b associated with each ofat least some of the primary waveguides 632 a. The planar waveguides 632b can be similar to the waveguides 432 b, 434 b, 436 b, 438 b, 440 bdiscussed with reference to FIG. 4. The optical system may employ adistribution waveguide apparatus to relay light along a first axis(vertical or Y-axis in view of FIG. 6), and expand the light's effectiveexit pupil along the first axis (e.g., Y-axis). The distributionwaveguide apparatus may, for example, include a distribution planarwaveguide 622 b and at least one DOE 622 a (illustrated by doubledash-dot line) associated with the distribution planar waveguide 622 b.The distribution planar waveguide 622 b may be similar or identical inat least some respects to the primary planar waveguide 632 b, having adifferent orientation therefrom. Likewise, at least one DOE 622 a may besimilar to or identical in at least some respects to the DOE 632 a. Forexample, the distribution planar waveguide 622 b or DOE 622 a may becomprised of the same materials as the primary planar waveguide 632 b orDOE 632 a, respectively. Embodiments of the optical display system 600shown in FIG. 6 can be integrated into the wearable system 200 shown inFIG. 2.

The relayed and exit-pupil expanded light may be optically coupled fromthe distribution waveguide apparatus into the one or more primary planarwaveguides 632 b. The primary planar waveguide 632 b can relay lightalong a second axis, preferably orthogonal to first axis (e.g.,horizontal or X-axis in view of FIG. 6). Notably, the second axis can bea non-orthogonal axis to the first axis. The primary planar waveguide632 b expands the light's effective exit pupil along that second axis(e.g., X-axis). For example, the distribution planar waveguide 622 b canrelay and expand light along the vertical or Y-axis, and pass that lightto the primary planar waveguide 632 b which can relay and expand lightalong the horizontal or X-axis.

The optical system may include one or more sources of colored light(e.g., red, green, and blue laser light) 610 which may be opticallycoupled into a proximal end of a single mode optical fiber 640. A distalend of the optical fiber 640 may be threaded or received through ahollow tube 642 of piezoelectric material. The distal end protrudes fromthe tube 642 as fixed-free flexible cantilever 644. The piezoelectrictube 642 can be associated with four quadrant electrodes (notillustrated). The electrodes may, for example, be plated on the outside,outer surface or outer periphery or diameter of the tube 642. A coreelectrode (not illustrated) may also be located in a core, center, innerperiphery or inner diameter of the tube 642.

Drive electronics 650, for example electrically coupled via wires 660,drive opposing pairs of electrodes to bend the piezoelectric tube 642 intwo axes independently. The protruding distal tip of the optical fiber644 has mechanical modes of resonance. The frequencies of resonance candepend upon a diameter, length, and material properties of the opticalfiber 644. By vibrating the piezoelectric tube 642 near a first mode ofmechanical resonance of the fiber cantilever 644, the fiber cantilever644 can be caused to vibrate, and can sweep through large deflections.

By stimulating resonant vibration in two axes, the tip of the fibercantilever 644 is scanned biaxially in an area filling two-dimensional(2D) scan. By modulating an intensity of light source(s) 610 insynchrony with the scan of the fiber cantilever 644, light emerging fromthe fiber cantilever 644 can form an image. Descriptions of such a setup are provided in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2014/0003762, which isincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

A component of an optical coupler subsystem can collimate the lightemerging from the scanning fiber cantilever 644. The collimated lightcan be reflected by mirrored surface 648 into the narrow distributionplanar waveguide 622 b which contains the at least one diffractiveoptical element (DOE) 622 a. The collimated light can propagatevertically (relative to the view of FIG. 6) along the distributionplanar waveguide 622 b by TIR, and in doing so repeatedly intersectswith the DOE 622 a. The DOE 622 a preferably has a low diffractionefficiency. This can cause a fraction (e.g., 10%) of the light to bediffracted toward an edge of the larger primary planar waveguide 632 bat each point of intersection with the DOE 622 a, and a fraction of thelight to continue on its original trajectory down the length of thedistribution planar waveguide 622 b via TIR.

At each point of intersection with the DOE 622 a, additional light canbe diffracted toward the entrance of the primary waveguide 632 b. Bydividing the incoming light into multiple outcoupled sets, the exitpupil of the light can be expanded vertically by the DOE 622 a in thedistribution planar waveguide 622 b. This vertically expanded lightcoupled out of distribution planar waveguide 622 b can enter the edge ofthe primary planar waveguide 632 b.

Light entering primary waveguide 632 b can propagate horizontally(relative to the view of FIG. 6) along the primary waveguide 632 b viaTIR. As the light intersects with DOE 632 a at multiple points as itpropagates horizontally along at least a portion of the length of theprimary waveguide 632 b via TIR. The DOE 632 a may advantageously bedesigned or configured to have a phase profile that is a summation of alinear diffraction pattern and a radially symmetric diffractive pattern,to produce both deflection and focusing of the light. The DOE 632 a mayadvantageously have a low diffraction efficiency (e.g., 10%), so thatonly a portion of the light of the beam is deflected toward the eye ofthe view with each intersection of the DOE 632 a while the rest of thelight continues to propagate through the primary waveguide 632 b viaTIR.

At each point of intersection between the propagating light and the DOE632 a, a fraction of the light is diffracted toward the adjacent face ofthe primary waveguide 632 b allowing the light to escape the TIR, andemerge from the face of the primary waveguide 632 b. In someembodiments, the radially symmetric diffraction pattern of the DOE 632 aadditionally imparts a focus level to the diffracted light, both shapingthe light wavefront (e.g., imparting a curvature) of the individual beamas well as steering the beam at an angle that matches the designed focuslevel.

Accordingly, these different pathways can cause the light to be coupledout of the primary planar waveguide 632 b by a multiplicity of DOEs 632a at different angles, focus levels, or yielding different fill patternsat the exit pupil. Different fill patterns at the exit pupil can bebeneficially used to create a light field display with multiple depthplanes. Each layer in the waveguide assembly or a set of layers (e.g., 3layers) in the stack may be employed to generate a respective color(e.g., red, blue, green). Thus, for example, a first set of threeadjacent layers may be employed to respectively produce red, blue andgreen light at a first focal depth. A second set of three adjacentlayers may be employed to respectively produce red, blue and green lightat a second focal depth. Multiple sets may be employed to generate afull 3D or 4D color image light field with various focal depths.

Other Components of the Wearable System

In many implementations, the wearable system may include othercomponents in addition or in alternative to the components of thewearable system described above. The wearable system may, for example,include one or more haptic devices or components. The haptic devices orcomponents may be operable to provide a tactile sensation to a user. Forexample, the haptic devices or components may provide a tactilesensation of pressure or texture when touching virtual content (e.g.,virtual objects, virtual tools, other virtual constructs). The tactilesensation may replicate a feel of a physical object which a virtualobject represents, or may replicate a feel of an imagined object orcharacter (e.g., a dragon) which the virtual content represents. In someimplementations, haptic devices or components may be worn by the user(e.g., a user wearable glove). In some implementations, haptic devicesor components may be held by the user.

The wearable system may, for example, include one or more physicalobjects which are manipulable by the user to allow input or interactionwith the wearable system. These physical objects may be referred toherein as totems. Some totems may take the form of inanimate objects,such as for example, a piece of metal or plastic, a wall, a surface oftable. In certain implementations, the totems may not actually have anyphysical input structures (e.g., keys, triggers, joystick, trackball,rocker switch). Instead, the totem may simply provide a physicalsurface, and the wearable system may render a user interface so as toappear to a user to be on one or more surfaces of the totem. Forexample, the wearable system may render an image of a computer keyboardand trackpad to appear to reside on one or more surfaces of a totem. Forexample, the wearable system may render a virtual computer keyboard andvirtual trackpad to appear on a surface of a thin rectangular plate ofaluminum which serves as a totem. The rectangular plate does not itselfhave any physical keys or trackpad or sensors. However, the wearablesystem may detect user manipulation or interaction or touches with therectangular plate as selections or inputs made via the virtual keyboardor virtual trackpad. The user input device 466 (shown in FIG. 4) may bean embodiment of a totem, which may include a trackpad, a touchpad, atrigger, a joystick, a trackball, a rocker or virtual switch, a mouse, akeyboard, a multi-degree-of-freedom controller, or another physicalinput device. A user may use the totem, alone or in combination withposes, to interact with the wearable system or other users.

Examples of haptic devices and totems usable with the wearable devices,HMD, and display systems of the present disclosure are described in U.S.Patent Publication No. 2015/0016777, which is incorporated by referenceherein in its entirety.

Example Wearable Systems, Environments, and Interfaces

A wearable system may employ various mapping related techniques in orderto achieve high depth of field in the rendered light fields. In mappingout the virtual world, it is advantageous to know all the features andpoints in the real world to accurately portray virtual objects inrelation to the real world. To this end, FOV images captured from usersof the wearable system can be added to a world model by including newpictures that convey information about various points and features ofthe real world. For example, the wearable system can collect a set ofmap points (such as 2D points or 3D points) and find new map points torender a more accurate version of the world model. The world model of afirst user can be communicated (e.g., over a network such as a cloudnetwork) to a second user so that the second user can experience theworld surrounding the first user.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example of an MR environment 700. The MRenvironment 700 may be configured to receive input (e.g., visual input702 from the user's wearable system, stationary input 704 such as roomcameras, sensory input 706 from various sensors, gestures, totems, eyetracking, user input from the user input device 466 etc.) from one ormore user wearable systems (e.g., wearable system 200 or display system220) or stationary room systems (e.g., room cameras, etc.). The wearablesystems can use various sensors (e.g., accelerometers, gyroscopes,temperature sensors, movement sensors, depth sensors, GPS sensors,inward-facing imaging system, outward-facing imaging system, etc.) todetermine the location and various other attributes of the environmentof the user. This information may further be supplemented withinformation from stationary cameras in the room that may provide imagesor various cues from a different point of view. The image data acquiredby the cameras (such as the room cameras and/or the cameras of theoutward-facing imaging system) may be reduced to a set of mappingpoints.

One or more object recognizers 708 can crawl through the received data(e.g., the collection of points) and recognize or map points, tagimages, attach semantic information to objects with the help of a mapdatabase 710. The map database 710 may comprise various points collectedover time and their corresponding objects. The various devices and themap database can be connected to each other through a network (e.g.,LAN, WAN, etc.) to access the cloud.

Based on this information and collection of points in the map database,the object recognizers 708 a to 708 n may recognize objects in anenvironment. For example, the object recognizers can recognize faces,persons, windows, walls, user input devices, televisions, documents(e.g., travel tickets, driver's license, passport as described in thesecurity examples herein), other objects in the user's environment, etc.One or more object recognizers may be specialized for object withcertain characteristics. For example, the object recognizer 708 a may beused to recognizer faces, while another object recognizer may be usedrecognize documents.

The object recognitions may be performed using a variety of computervision techniques. For example, the wearable system can analyze theimages acquired by the outward-facing imaging system 464 (shown in FIG.4) to perform scene reconstruction, event detection, video tracking,object recognition (e.g., persons or documents), object pose estimation,facial recognition (e.g., from a person in the environment or an imageon a document), learning, indexing, motion estimation, or image analysis(e.g., identifying indicia within documents such as photos, signatures,identification information, travel information, etc.), and so forth. Oneor more computer vision algorithms may be used to perform these tasks.Non-limiting examples of computer vision algorithms include:Scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT), speeded up robust features(SURF), oriented FAST and rotated BRIEF (ORB), binary robust invariantscalable keypoints (BRISK), fast retina keypoint (FREAK), Viola-Jonesalgorithm, Eigenfaces approach, Lucas-Kanade algorithm, Horn-Schunkalgorithm, Mean-shift algorithm, visual simultaneous location andmapping (vSLAM) techniques, a sequential Bayesian estimator (e.g.,Kalman filter, extended Kalman filter, etc.), bundle adjustment,Adaptive thresholding (and other thresholding techniques), IterativeClosest Point (ICP), Semi Global Matching (SGM), Semi Global BlockMatching (SGBM), Feature Point Histograms, various machine learningalgorithms (such as e.g., support vector machine, k-nearest neighborsalgorithm, Naive Bayes, neural network (including convolutional or deepneural networks), or other supervised/unsupervised models, etc.), and soforth.

The object recognitions can additionally or alternatively be performedby a variety of machine learning algorithms. Once trained, the machinelearning algorithm can be stored by the HMD. Some examples of machinelearning algorithms can include supervised or non-supervised machinelearning algorithms, including regression algorithms (such as, forexample, Ordinary Least Squares Regression), instance-based algorithms(such as, for example, Learning Vector Quantization), decision treealgorithms (such as, for example, classification and regression trees),Bayesian algorithms (such as, for example, Naive Bayes), clusteringalgorithms (such as, for example, k-means clustering), association rulelearning algorithms (such as, for example, a-priori algorithms),artificial neural network algorithms (such as, for example, Perceptron),deep learning algorithms (such as, for example, Deep Boltzmann Machine,or deep neural network), dimensionality reduction algorithms (such as,for example, Principal Component Analysis), ensemble algorithms (suchas, for example, Stacked Generalization), and/or other machine learningalgorithms. In some embodiments, individual models can be customized forindividual data sets. For example, the wearable device can generate orstore a base model. The base model may be used as a starting point togenerate additional models specific to a data type (e.g., a particularuser in the telepresence session), a data set (e.g., a set of additionalimages obtained of the user in the telepresence session), conditionalsituations, or other variations. In some embodiments, the wearable HMDcan be configured to utilize a plurality of techniques to generatemodels for analysis of the aggregated data. Other techniques may includeusing pre-defined thresholds or data values.

Based on this information and collection of points in the map database,the object recognizers 708 a to 708 n may recognize objects andsupplement objects with semantic information to give life to theobjects. For example, if the object recognizer recognizes a set ofpoints to be a door, the system may attach some semantic information(e.g., the door has a hinge and has a 90 degree movement about thehinge). If the object recognizer recognizes a set of points to be amirror, the system may attach semantic information that the mirror has areflective surface that can reflect images of objects in the room. Thesemantic information can include affordances of the objects as describedherein. For example, the semantic information may include a normal ofthe object. The system can assign a vector whose direction indicates thenormal of the object. Over time the map database grows as the system(which may reside locally or may be accessible through a wirelessnetwork) accumulates more data from the world. Once the objects arerecognized, the information may be transmitted to one or more wearablesystems. For example, the MR environment 700 may include informationabout a scene happening in California. The environment 700 may betransmitted to one or more users in New York. Based on data receivedfrom an FOV camera and other inputs, the object recognizers and othersoftware components can map the points collected from the variousimages, recognize objects etc., such that the scene may be accurately“passed over” to a second user, who may be in a different part of theworld. The environment 700 may also use a topological map forlocalization purposes.

FIG. 8 is a process flow diagram of an example of a method 800 ofrendering virtual content in relation to recognized objects. The method800 describes how a virtual scene may be presented to a user of thewearable system. The user may be geographically remote from the scene.For example, the user may be in New York, but may want to view a scenethat is presently going on in California, or may want to go on a walkwith a friend who resides in California.

At block 810, the wearable system may receive input from the user andother users regarding the environment of the user. This may be achievedthrough various input devices, and knowledge already possessed in themap database. The user's FOV camera, sensors, GPS, eye tracking, etc.,convey information to the system at block 810. The system may determinesparse points based on this information at block 820. The sparse pointsmay be used in determining pose data (e.g., head pose, eye pose, bodypose, or hand gestures) that can be used in displaying and understandingthe orientation and position of various objects in the user'ssurroundings. The object recognizers 708 a-708 n may crawl through thesecollected points and recognize one or more objects using a map databaseat block 830. This information may then be conveyed to the user'sindividual wearable system at block 840, and the desired virtual scenemay be accordingly displayed to the user at block 850. For example, thedesired virtual scene (e.g., user in CA) may be displayed at theappropriate orientation, position, etc., in relation to the variousobjects and other surroundings of the user in New York.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of another example of a wearable system. Inthis example, the wearable system 900 comprises a map, which may includemap data for the world. The map may partly reside locally on thewearable system, and may partly reside at networked storage locationsaccessible by wired or wireless network (e.g., in a cloud system). Apose process 910 may be executed on the wearable computing architecture(e.g., processing module 260 or controller 460) and utilize data fromthe map to determine position and orientation of the wearable computinghardware or user. Pose data may be computed from data collected on thefly as the user is experiencing the system and operating in the world.The data may comprise images, data from sensors (such as inertialmeasurement units, which generally comprise accelerometer and gyroscopecomponents) and surface information pertinent to objects in the real orvirtual environment.

A sparse point representation may be the output of a simultaneouslocalization and mapping (e.g., SLAM or vSLAM, referring to aconfiguration wherein the input is images/visual only) process. Thesystem can be configured to not only find out where in the world thevarious components are, but what the world is made of. Pose may be abuilding block that achieves many goals, including populating the mapand using the data from the map.

In one embodiment, a sparse point position may not be completelyadequate on its own, and further information may be needed to produce amultifocal AR, VR, or MR experience. Dense representations, generallyreferring to depth map information, may be utilized to fill this gap atleast in part. Such information may be computed from a process referredto as Stereo 940, wherein depth information is determined using atechnique such as triangulation or time-of-flight sensing. Imageinformation and active patterns (such as infrared patterns created usingactive projectors) may serve as input to the Stereo process 940. Asignificant amount of depth map information may be fused together, andsome of this may be summarized with a surface representation. Forexample, mathematically definable surfaces may be efficient (e.g.,relative to a large point cloud) and digestible inputs to otherprocessing devices like game engines. Thus, the output of the stereoprocess (e.g., a depth map) 940 may be combined in the fusion process930. Pose 950 may be an input to this fusion process 930 as well, andthe output of fusion 930 becomes an input to populating the map process920. Sub-surfaces may connect with each other, such as in topographicalmapping, to form larger surfaces, and the map becomes a large hybrid ofpoints and surfaces.

To resolve various aspects in a mixed reality process 960, variousinputs may be utilized. For example, in the embodiment depicted in FIG.9, Game parameters may be inputs to determine that the user of thesystem is playing a monster battling game with one or more monsters atvarious locations, monsters dying or running away under variousconditions (such as if the user shoots the monster), walls or otherobjects at various locations, and the like. The world map may includeinformation regarding where such objects are relative to each other, tobe another valuable input to mixed reality. Pose relative to the worldbecomes an input as well and plays a key role to almost any interactivesystem.

Controls or inputs from the user are another input to the wearablesystem 900. As described herein, user inputs can include visual input,gestures, totems, audio input, sensory input, etc. In order to movearound or play a game, for example, the user may need to instruct thewearable system 900 regarding what he or she wants to do. Beyond justmoving oneself in space, there are various forms of user controls thatmay be utilized. In one embodiment, a totem (e.g. a user input device),or an object such as a toy gun may be held by the user and tracked bythe system. The system preferably will be configured to know that theuser is holding the item and understand what kind of interaction theuser is having with the item (e.g., if the totem or object is a gun, thesystem may be configured to understand location and orientation, as wellas whether the user is clicking a trigger or other sensed button orelement which may be equipped with a sensor, such as an IMU, which mayassist in determining what is going on, even when such activity is notwithin the field of view of any of the cameras.)

Hand gesture tracking or recognition may also provide input information.The wearable system 900 may be configured to track and interpret handgestures for button presses, for gesturing left or right, stop, grab,hold, etc. For example, in one configuration, the user may want to flipthrough emails or a calendar in a non-gaming environment, or do a “fistbump” with another person or player. The wearable system 900 may beconfigured to leverage a minimum amount of hand gesture, which may ormay not be dynamic. For example, the gestures may be simple staticgestures like open hand for stop, thumbs up for ok, thumbs down for notok; or a hand flip right, or left, or up/down for directional commands.

Eye tracking is another input (e.g., tracking where the user is lookingto control the display technology to render at a specific depth orrange). In one embodiment, vergence of the eyes may be determined usingtriangulation, and then using a vergence/accommodation model developedfor that particular person, accommodation may be determined. Eyetracking can be performed by the eye camera(s) to determine eye gaze(e.g., direction or orientation of one or both eyes). Other techniquescan be used for eye tracking such as, e.g., measurement of electricalpotentials by electrodes placed near the eye(s) (e.g.,electrooculography).

Voice recognition can be another input, which can be used alone or incombination with other inputs (e.g., totem tracking, eye tracking,gesture tracking, etc.). The system 900 can include an audio sensor(e.g., a microphone) that receives an audio stream from the environment.The received audio stream can be processed (e.g., by processing modules260, 270 or central server 1650) to recognize a user's voice (from othervoices or background audio), to extract commands, parameters, etc. fromthe audio stream. For example, the system 900 may identify from an audiostream that the phrase “show me your identification” was said, identifythat this phrase was said by the wearer of the system 900 (e.g., asecurity inspector rather than another person in the inspector'senvironment), and extract from the phrase and the context of thesituation (e.g., a security checkpoint) that there is an executablecommand to be performed (e.g., computer vision analysis of something inthe wearer's FOV) and an object for which the command is to be performedon (“your identification”). The system 900 can incorporate speakerrecognition technology to determine who is speaking (e.g., whether thespeech is from the wearer of the ARD or another person or voice (e.g., arecorded voice transmitted by a loudspeaker in the environment)) as wellas speech recognition technology to determine what is being said. Voicerecognition techniques can include frequency estimation, hidden Markovmodels, Gaussian mixture models, pattern matching algorithms, neuralnetworks, matrix representation, Vector Quantization, speakerdiarisation, decision trees, and dynamic time warping (DTW) technique.Voice recognition techniques can also include anti-speaker techniques,such as cohort models, and world models. Spectral features may be usedin representing speaker characteristics.

With regard to the camera systems, the example wearable system 900 shownin FIG. 9 can include three pairs of cameras: a relative wide FOV orpassive SLAM pair of cameras arranged to the sides of the user's face, adifferent pair of cameras oriented in front of the user to handle thestereo imaging process 940 and also to capture hand gestures andtotem/object tracking in front of the user's face. The FOV cameras andthe pair of cameras for the stereo process 940 may be a part of theoutward-facing imaging system 464 (shown in FIG. 4). The wearable system900 can include eye tracking cameras (which may be a part of aninward-facing imaging system 462 shown in FIG. 4) oriented toward theeyes of the user in order to triangulate eye vectors and otherinformation. The wearable system 900 may also comprise one or moretextured light projectors (such as infrared (IR) projectors) to injecttexture into a scene.

FIG. 10 is a process flow diagram of an example of a method 1000 fordetermining user input to a wearable system. In this example, the usermay interact with a totem. The user may have multiple totems. Forexample, the user may have designated one totem for a social mediaapplication, another totem for playing games, etc. At block 1010, thewearable system may detect a motion of a totem. The movement of thetotem may be recognized through the outward-facing imaging system or maybe detected through sensors (e.g., haptic glove, image sensors, handtracking devices, eye-tracking cameras, head pose sensors, etc.).

Based at least partly on the detected gesture, eye pose, head pose, orinput through the totem, the wearable system detects a position,orientation, or movement of the totem (or the user's eyes or head orgestures) with respect to a reference frame, at block 1020. Thereference frame may be a set of map points based on which the wearablesystem translates the movement of the totem (or the user) to an actionor command. At block 1030, the user's interaction with the totem ismapped. Based on the mapping of the user interaction with respect to thereference frame 1020, the system determines the user input at block1040.

For example, the user may move a totem or physical object back and forthto signify turning a virtual page and moving on to a next page or movingfrom one user interface (UI) display screen to another UI screen. Asanother example, the user may move their head or eyes to look atdifferent real or virtual objects in the user's FOR. If the user's gazeat a particular real or virtual object is longer than a threshold time,the real or virtual object may be selected as the user input. In someimplementations, the vergence of the user's eyes can be tracked and anaccommodation/vergence model can be used to determine the accommodationstate of the user's eyes, which provides information on a depth plane onwhich the user is focusing. In some implementations, the wearable systemcan use ray casting techniques to determine which real or virtualobjects are along the direction of the user's head pose or eye pose. Invarious implementations, the ray casting techniques can include castingthin, pencil rays with substantially little transverse width or castingrays with substantial transverse width (e.g., cones or frustums).

The user interface may be projected by the display system as describedherein (such as the display 220 in FIG. 2). It may also be displayedusing a variety of other techniques such as one or more projectors. Theprojectors may project images onto a physical object such as a canvas ora globe. Interactions with user interface may be tracked using one ormore cameras external to the system or part of the system (such as,e.g., using the inward-facing imaging system 462 or the outward-facingimaging system 464).

FIG. 11 is a process flow diagram of an example of a method 1100 forinteracting with a virtual user interface. The method 1100 may beperformed by the wearable system described herein. Embodiments of themethod 1100 can be used by the wearable system to detect persons ordocuments in the FOV of the wearable system.

At block 1110, the wearable system may identify a particular UI. Thetype of UI may be predetermined by the user. The wearable system mayidentify that a particular UI needs to be populated based on a userinput (e.g., gesture, visual data, audio data, sensory data, directcommand, etc.). The UI can be specific to a security scenario where thewearer of the system is observing users who present documents to thewearer (e.g., at a travel checkpoint). At block 1120, the wearablesystem may generate data for the virtual UI. For example, dataassociated with the confines, general structure, shape of the UI etc.,may be generated. In addition, the wearable system may determine mapcoordinates of the user's physical location so that the wearable systemcan display the UI in relation to the user's physical location. Forexample, if the UI is body centric, the wearable system may determinethe coordinates of the user's physical stance, head pose, or eye posesuch that a ring UI can be displayed around the user or a planar UI canbe displayed on a wall or in front of the user. In the security contextdescribed herein, the UI may be displayed as if the UI were surroundingthe traveler who is presenting documents to the wearer of the system, sothat the wearer can readily view the UI while looking at the travelerand the traveler's documents. If the UI is hand centric, the mapcoordinates of the user's hands may be determined. These map points maybe derived through data received through the FOV cameras, sensory input,or any other type of collected data.

At block 1130, the wearable system may send the data to the display fromthe cloud or the data may be sent from a local database to the displaycomponents. At block 1140, the UI is displayed to the user based on thesent data. For example, a light field display can project the virtual UIinto one or both of the user's eyes. Once the virtual UI has beencreated, the wearable system may simply wait for a command from the userto generate more virtual content on the virtual UI at block 1150. Forexample, the UI may be a body centric ring around the user's body or thebody of a person in the user's environment (e.g., a traveler). Thewearable system may then wait for the command (a gesture, a head or eyemovement, voice command, input from a user input device, etc.), and ifit is recognized (block 1160), virtual content associated with thecommand may be displayed to the user (block 1170).

Additional examples of wearable systems, UIs, and user experiences (UX)are described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0016777, which isincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Example Objects in the User's Environment

As described with reference to FIG. 4, a user of an augmented realitydevice (ARD) can have a field of regard (FOR) which comprises a portionof the environment around the user that is capable of being perceived bythe user via the AR system. For a head-mounted ARD, the FOR may includesubstantially all of the 4π steradian solid angle surrounding thewearer, because the wearer can move her body, head, or eyes to perceivesubstantially any direction in space. In other contexts, the user'smovements may be more constricted, and accordingly the user's FOR maysubtend a smaller solid angle.

The FOR can contain a group of objects which can be perceived by theuser via the ARD. The objects may be virtual and/or physical objects.The virtual objects may include operating system objects such as e.g., arecycle bin for deleted files, a terminal for inputting commands, a filemanager for accessing files or directories, an icon, a menu, anapplication for audio or video streaming, a notification from anoperating system, and so on. The virtual objects may also includeobjects in an application such as e.g., avatars, widgets (e.g., avirtual representation of a clock), virtual objects in games, graphicsor images, etc. Some virtual objects can be both an operating systemobject and an object in an application.

A virtual object may be a three-dimensional (3D), two-dimensional (2D),or one-dimensional (1D) object. For example, the virtual object may be a3D coffee mug (which may represent a virtual control for a physicalcoffee maker). The virtual object may also be a 2D graphicalrepresentation of a clock which displays the current time to the user.In some implementations, one or more virtual objects may be displayedwithin (or associated with) another virtual object. For example, thevirtual coffee mug may be shown inside of a user interface plane,although the virtual coffee mug appears to be 3D while the userinterface plane may appear to be 2D.

In some embodiments, virtual objects may be associated with physicalobjects. For example, as shown in FIG. 12B, a virtual book 1220 mayappear to be on top of the table 1242. The user can interact with thevirtual book 1220 (such as reading and flipping through the pages) as ifit is a physical book on the table 1242. As another example, a virtualwardrobe application may be associated with a mirror in the user's FOR.When the user is near the mirror, the user may be able to interact withthe virtual wardrobe application which allows the user to simulate thelook of different outfits using the ARD.

The objects in the user's FOR can be part of a world model as describedwith reference to FIG. 9. Data associated with the objects (e.g.location, semantic information, properties, etc.) can be stored in avariety of data structures such as, e.g., arrays, lists, trees, hashes,graphs, and so on. The index of each stored object, where applicable,may be determined, for example, by the location of the object. Forexample, the data structure may index the objects by a single coordinatesuch as the object's distance from a fiducial position (e.g., how far tothe left (or right) of the fiducial position, how far from the top (orbottom) of the fiducial position, or how far depth-wise from thefiducial position). In situations where the ARD comprises a light fielddisplay that is capable of displaying virtual objects at different depthplanes relative to the user, the virtual objects can be organized intomultiple arrays located at different fixed depth planes. In someimplementations, the objects in the environment may be expressed in avector form, which may be used to calculate the position and movementsof a virtual object. For example, an object may have an origin point, adown vector in the direction of gravity, and a forward vector in thedirection of the surface normal of the object. For example, the surfacenormal of a display (e.g., a virtual TV) may indicate the direction fromwhich displayed images can be viewed (rather than the direction fromwhich the back of the display can be seen). The AR system may calculatethe difference between components of the two vectors and therebydetermine the spatial relationship between the objects associated withthe two vectors. The AR system may also use this difference to calculatethe amount of movement one object needs to make to be on top (or inside)of the other object.

Examples of Moving a Virtual Object

A user can interact with a subset of the objects in the user's FOR. Thissubset of objects may sometimes be referred to as interactable objects.The user can interact with the interactable objects by performing userinterface operations such as, e.g., selecting or moving the interactableobjects, actuating menus associated with the interactable objects,selecting operations to be performed using the interactable object, etc.As is apparent in an AR/VR/MR world, movements of virtual objects do notrefer to actual physical movements of the virtual object, since thevirtual objects are computer-generated images and not physical objects.

The user may perform various user interface operations using head pose,eye pose, body pose, voice commands, or hand gestures on a user inputdevice, alone or in combination. For example, the user may interact withthe interactable objects by using hand gestures to actuate a user inputdevice (see e.g. user input device 466 in FIG. 4), such as, e.g.,clicking on a mouse, tapping on a touch pad, swiping on a touch screen,hovering over or touching a capacitive button, pressing a key on akeyboard or a game controller (e.g., a 5-way d-pad), pointing ajoystick, wand, or totem toward the object, pressing a button on aremote control, or other interactions with a user input device, alone orin combination. The user may also interact with interactable objectsusing head, eye, or body pose, such as, e.g., gazing or pointing at anobject for a period of time, titling the head, waving at the object,etc.

In some implementations, the AR system may provide a focus indicator(such as the focus indicator 1450 shown in FIGS. 14A-14D and FIGS.15A-15H) indicating a position of the target object (see e.g. focusindicator in FIG. 14A). The focus indicator may also be used to show thecurrent position of the user input device or a user's pose (see e.g.focus indicator in FIG. 15D). In addition to or as an alternative toproviding an indication of the position, the focus indicator can alsoprovide an indication of the orientation of the target object, the userinput device, or the user's pose. For example, the focus indicator cancomprise a halo, a color, a perceived size or depth change (e.g.,causing the target object to appear closer and/or larger when selected),a graphical representation of a cursor (such as a reticle), or otheraudible, tactile, or visual effects which draw the user's attention. Thefocus indicator can appear as 1D, 2D, or 3D images which may includestill frame images or animations.

As an example of presenting a focus indicator by the AR system, when auser is staring at a blank wall, the AR system may project a virtualcone or ray on the wall indicating the user's current direction of gaze.As another example, a user may actuate a user input device to indicatethat he wants to interact with an object in his environment. The ARsystem may assign a focus indicator to that object so that the user canmore readily perceive the object. As the user changes his pose oractuates the user input device, the AR system may transport the focusindicator from one location to another.

Examples of Snapping and Orienting a Virtual Object

As described herein, because the user can move and rotate the virtualobjects in multiple directions, the user may sometimes find it difficultto precisely position and orient the virtual objects. To reduce userfatigue and provide an improved AR device (ARD) with which the user isinteracting, the ARD can automatically reposition a virtual object withrespect to a destination object in the environment. For example, the ARDcan automatically attach (also referred to as “snap”) a virtual objectto another virtual or physical object in the environment when thevirtual object is within a threshold distance from the virtual orphysical object. In addition to or in alternative to snapping thevirtual object to a destination object, the ARD can automatically changethe position or orient the virtual object when the virtual object is inthe proximity of the destination object. For example, the ARD can rotatethe virtual object such that the normal of the virtual object is facingthe user. As another example, the ARD can align the boundary of avirtual image with that of a physical book such that the virtual objectcan appear to be part of the physical book.

The AR system can reposition the virtual object into an appropriateposition or orientation based on affordances of the virtual object orthe target object. An affordance comprises a relation between the objectand the environment of the object which affords an opportunity for anaction or use associated with the object. The affordance may bedetermined based on, for example, the function, the orientation, thetype, the location, the shape, or the size of the virtual object or thedestination object. The affordances may also be based on the environmentin which the virtual object or the destination object is located. Theaffordance of a virtual object may be programmed as part of the virtualobject and stored in the remote data repository 280. For example, thevirtual object may be programmed to include a vector which indicates thenormal of the virtual object.

For example, an affordance of a virtual display screen (e.g., a virtualTV) is that the display screen can be viewed from a direction indicatedby a normal to the screen. An affordance of a vertical wall is thatobjects can be placed on the wall (e.g., “hang” on the wall) with theirsurface normal parallel to a normal to the wall. The user can use the ARsystem to move a virtual display close to a wall and, when sufficientlyclose to the wall, the AR system can cause the virtual display toautomatically snap onto the wall, with the display normal parallel tothe wall normal, without further user input. An additional affordance ofthe virtual display and the wall can be that each has a top or a bottom.When snapping the virtual display onto the wall, the AR system canautomatically orient the virtual display so that the bottom of thevirtual display is oriented toward the bottom of the wall (or the top ofthe display is oriented toward the top of the wall), thereby ensuringthat the virtual display does not present images that are upside down.

In some situations, in order to reposition the virtual object, the ARDcan also change other characteristics of the virtual object. Forexample, the size or shape of the virtual image may not be the same asthe physical book. As a result, the ARD can change the size or the shapeof the virtual image to match that of the physical book to align theboundary of the virtual image with that of the physical book. The ARDmay (additionally or alternatively) reposition other nearby virtualobjects to provide sufficient space for the repositioned virtual object.

In effect, the AR system respects the affordances of physical andvirtual objects and positions or orients a virtual object relative toother physical or virtual objects based at least partly on theirrespective affordances. More details on these features are describedbelow.

Examples of Automatically Attaching a Virtual Object to a PhysicalObject

FIGS. 12A and 12B illustrate an example of attaching a virtual object toa table. As shown in FIG. 12A, a virtual book 1220 is initially floatingabove the table 1242 in the room 1200 a. The user may have previouslymoved the book 1220 from an initial position to the position above thetable (as shown in FIG. 12A). The user can provide an indication ofplacing the virtual book 1220 onto the table 1242 by actuating a userinput device. For example, the user can select the virtual book 1220 byclicking his totem and pointing his totem at the table 1242 indicatingthat the virtual book 1220 needs to be placed on the table 1242. The ARsystem can move the virtual book 1220 to the table 1242 withoutrequiring the user to drag the book to the table 1220. As anotherexample, the user may look toward a destination position on the tablewhere the book should be placed, the AR system can determine thedestination position based on head pose or eye gaze, where the AR systemcan use IMUs to acquire data on the head pose or use eye-trackingcameras to determine the user's direction of gaze. The AR system canautomatically place the virtual book 1220 at the destination position onthe table 1242 when the user actuates a totem. In some implementations,the user does not need to indicate a destination object, such as thetable 1242 or the wall 1210, to which the target object is moved,because the AR system can simulate an attractive force that acts to pullthe virtual object onto the target object. For example, when the userselects the virtual book 1220, the AR system can simulate agravitational effect for the virtual book 1220, where the virtual book1220 is moving in the downward direction 1232. The AR system canautomatically identify the table 1242 as the destination object becauseit is the first object that is on the path of the virtual book 1220 in adownward movement (as indicated by the arrow 1232). Accordingly, thevirtual book can appear to be dropped onto the table 1242 as if it werea physical book.

The AR system can determine parameters for repositioning of the virtualbook 1220 and calculate values of the parameters based on affordances ofthe virtual book, the environment (e.g., the room 1200 a), or thedestination object. Some example parameters of the movement can includean amount of the movements (e.g., a distance or trajectory travelled), aspeed of the movement, an acceleration of the movement, or other physicsparameters.

The AR system can calculate the amount of movements for the virtual book1220 based on the position of the virtual book 1220 and the position ofthe table 1242. For example, the AR system may attach vectors tophysical objects and virtual objects in the room. The vectors mayinclude location and direction information of the physical and thevirtual objects. The vector for the virtual book 1220 may have acomponent in the direction of gravity (e.g., the direction 1232).Similarly, a vector for the surface of the table 1242 may also have acomponent indicating its current location in the direction of gravity.The AR system can obtain the difference between the position of thesurface of the table 1242 and the position of the virtual book 1220 inthe direction of the gravity. The AR system can use this difference todetermine how far downward the virtual book 1220 should be moved. Thevector can also include information on size of the gravity. Themagnitude of the gravity (e.g., a gravitational acceleration) may changebased on the user's physical or virtual environment. For example, when auser is at home, the gravity may be set at the Earth's value of 9.8 m/s²(1 “g”). However, a user may play a game using the AR system which canpresent a virtual environment in the game. As an example, if the virtualenvironment is the moon, the magnitude of the gravitational accelerationmay be ⅙ “g” and if the virtual environment were Jupiter, the magnitudeof the gravitational acceleration may be 2.5 “g”.

To provide improved user experience with the AR system, the AR systemcan simulate the movement of the virtual book 1220 from the FIG. 12A to12B using various laws of physics as if the virtual book 1220 were aphysical object. For example, the downward movement (as indicated by thearrow 1232) of the virtual book 1220 can be based on a freefall motion.The freefall motion can be combined with other forces (such as airresistance) in the user's environment to provide a realistic userexperience. As another example, the room 1200 a may have an open window.When a gust of wind blows into the room 1200 a, the AR system cansimulate the effect of the wind by automatically flipping the pages ofthe virtual book 1220.

Continuing with this example in FIGS. 12A and 12B, an affordance of atable is that it can support objects on its surface, so the virtual book1220 drops onto the top of the table 1242. Thus, when simulating theeffect of gravity, the AR system, does not display the virtual book 1220on the floor 1230 because the AR system respects the affordance of thetable that objects do not pass through tables. The table 1242 will blockthe virtual book 1220 from continuing to move in the direction ofgravity as if the virtual book 1242 were a physical book.

In some situations, only a portion of the table 1242 is on the path ofthe downward movement of the virtual book 1220. As a result, a portionof the virtual book 1220 may extend beyond the surface of the table1242. The AR system can determine whether the centroid of the virtualbook 1220 is on the surface of the table 1242. If the centroid of thevirtual book 1220 does rest on the surface of the table 1242, the ARsystem can display the virtual book 1220 on the table 1242. If thecentroid of the virtual book 1220 is outside of the table's 1242surface, the AR system can determine that the virtual book 1220 will notstay on the table 1242 and can display the virtual book 1220 on thefloor instead.

As another example, the virtual object may be a virtual tennis ballwhose affordance includes bouncing off a hard surface. Thus, when thevirtual tennis ball hits the table 1242, the AR system can show that thevirtual tennis ball bounces off the table 1242 and lands on the floor1230.

Additional affordances of virtual objects (e.g., books) and tables arethat a normal to the object should be parallel to a normal to a table(e.g., a virtual book lies flat on the table). The AR system canautomatically orient the virtual book 1220 appropriately so that itappears to the user to lie flat on the table 1242 as shown in FIG. 12B.

Besides moving a virtual object in the direction of gravity, the ARsystem can also move the virtual object in other directions. Forexample, the user may want to move a note to the wall. The user canpoint in the direction of the wall 1210 (e.g., with a hand or totem).Based on the direction indicated by the user, the AR system can use theoutward-facing imaging system and/or world models to identify a surfaceof the wall 1210 and automatically “fly” the note to the wall (see,e.g., the example scenes 1300 a, 1300 b, 1300 c, and 1300 d shown inFIGS. 13A-13D). In other implementations, objects on the wall may havean affordance such that they could attract the note. For example, anobject on the wall may represent a surface to which notes are typicallyattached (e.g., a magnetic note board on which magnetic notes can beattached or a cork note board to which notes can be pinned). The ARsystem can identify that a wall object has a “stickiness” affordance(e.g., a magnetic or cork note board) and the virtual note has acorresponding stickiness affordance (e.g., the note is magnetic orpinnable). The AR system can automatically attach the virtual note tothe wall object.

As described with reference to FIG. 7, semantic information can beattached to physical objects, virtual objects, physical environments,and virtual environments. The semantic information can includeaffordances. For example, the AR system can assign physical attributesto a virtual object, such as e.g., the following non-exclusive,illustrative attributes: mass, density, diameter, hardness (orsoftness), elasticity, stickiness, electromagnetic attributes (e.g.,charge, conductivity, magnetic attributes), phase (e.g., solid, liquid,or gas), and so forth. The AR system can also assign physical attributesto a virtual environment, such as gravity, air resistance, etc. Thevalues of the assigned attributes can be used to simulate interactionswith the virtual object using various laws of physics. For example, themovement of the virtual object may be based on forces exerted to thevirtual object. With reference to FIGS. 12A and 12B, the movement of thevirtual book 1220 may be determined based on forces calculated using thegravity and the air resistance of the room 1200 a, and the mass of thevirtual book 1220.

Examples of Virtual Copying and Pasting

In some embodiments, rather than reposition a virtual object to a targetdestination object, the AR system can replicate the virtual object andmove the replicated virtual object to a destination object or a locationin the environment. As one example, the AR system can present virtualmenus to the user by which the user can select one or more items fromthe virtual menu (e.g., using a totem or head or eye pose). The ARsystem can automatically place an item selected from the virtual menu inan appropriate place based on affordances of the selected item and theobjects in the user's environment. For example, the virtual menu maypresent to the user items including a virtual TV, a virtual audioplayer, a virtual game, etc. The user may select the virtual TV. The ARsystem can copy the virtual TV from the menu into a clipboard. The usercan look around the environment to find a target location where the userwants the virtual TV to be placed by the AR system. When the user findsthe target location, the user may actuate the user input device (e.g., atotem) to confirm selection of the target location, and the AR systemcan automatically display the virtual TV at the desired location. The ARsystem can display the virtual TV based on the affordances of the TV andthe target location. For example, if the desired location is on avertical wall, the AR system can display the virtual TV as if it werehanging flat against the wall. As another example, if the targetlocation is on horizontal table, the AR system can display the virtualTV as if it were lying flat on the table. In both of these examples, theAR system orients the virtual TV (which has a normal indicating thedirection from which the TV can be viewed) such that the normal of thevirtual TV is aligned with a normal to the target location, namely, thewall normal or the table normal.

In some situations, the virtual object may not be able to be placed atthe target location selected by the user. For example, a user may selecta table surface to place a virtual note. However, the table surface mayhave already been covered by other documents, and therefore the virtualnote cannot be placed on the table surface. The AR system can simulate arepulsive force such as, e.g., a repulsive spring force, which willprevent the virtual note from being placed onto the table surface.

Accordingly, such embodiments of the AR system can copy a virtual objectand paste it in the desired location with minimal user interaction,because the AR system knows about the affordances of the virtual objectas well as the other objects in the user's environment. The AR systemcan utilize these affordances to place virtual objects in their naturalposition and/or orientation in the user's environment.

Examples of Automatically Pivoting a Virtual Object

FIGS. 13A-13D show automatically adjusting the position and orientationof a virtual object 1320 when the virtual object 1320 is close to a wall1210. The virtual object 1320 has 4 corners 1326, 1328, 1322, and 1324.Once the AR system determines that the virtual object 1320 touches thewall 1210 (e.g., the corner 1322 touches the wall as shown in FIG. 13B),the AR system can reorient the virtual object 1320 so that the virtualobject 1320 appears to be aligned with the orientation of the wall 1210,e.g., the object normal 1355 becomes parallel to the wall normal 1350 asshown in FIG. 13D. The movements for reorienting the virtual object 1320may be along multiple axes in the 3D space. For example, as shown inFIGS. 13B and 13C, the AR system can pivot the virtual object 1320 inthe direction of 1330 a, and as a result, the corner 1324 also touchesthe wall 1210 as shown in FIG. 13C. To further align the virtual object1320 with the wall 1210, the AR system can pivot the virtual object 1320in the direction of 1330 b shown in FIG. 13C. Accordingly, the topcorners 1326 and 1328 of the virtual object 1320 also touch the wall asshown in FIG. 13D. In some cases, the virtual object 1320 may also havean affordance that its natural orientation on the wall 1210 is to hanghorizontally (e.g., a virtual painting). The AR system may use thisaffordance to orient the virtual object 1320 appropriately on the wall1210 (e.g., so that a virtual painting appears to hang properly from thewall rather than at an angle).

The AR system can reorient the virtual object 1320 by making the surfacenormal 1355 of the virtual object 1320 parallel to the surface normal1350 of the wall 1210 rather than anti-parallel to the normal 1350. Forexample, only one side of a virtual TV screen may be configured todisplay videos or only one side of a virtual painting may be configuredto display the painting. Accordingly, the AR system may need to flip thevirtual object so that the side with content is facing the user (insteadof facing the wall).

Examples of Snapping and Re-Orienting when a Virtual Object is within aThreshold Distance of Another Object

A user can move a virtual object to another location, for example, bydragging the virtual object using the user input device 466. When thevirtual object is close to a destination object, the AR system mayautomatically snap and orient the virtual object so that the user doesnot have to make minor adjustments to align the virtual object with thedestination object.

In FIGS. 14A-14D, the user of the ARD is moving a virtual object from atable to a wall. The virtual object 1430 may be a virtual TV screen. InFIG. 14A, the virtual TV screen 1430 in the room 1200 b initially was ontop of the table 1242 (as shown by dashed lines on the table 1242) andis being moved to the wall 1210. The user can select the virtual screen1430 and move the virtual screen 1430 in the direction 1440 a (e.g.,toward the desired destination position on the wall 1210). The AR systemmay show a visible focus indicator 1450 on the virtual screen 1430indicating the current position of the virtual screen 1430 andindicating that the user has selected the screen 1430.

The AR system can monitor the positions of the virtual screen 1430 asthe user moves the virtual screen 1430. The AR system can begin toautomatically snap and orient the virtual screen 1430 when the distancebetween the virtual screen 1430 and the wall 1210 is less than athreshold distance apart. The AR system may set the threshold distancesuch that the AR system can start automatically attaching and orientingthe virtual screen 1430 when at least a portion of the virtual screentouches the wall 1210, as described with reference to FIGS. 13A-13D. Insome implementations, the threshold distance may be sufficiently largesuch that the AR system begins to automatically attach and/or orient thevirtual screen 1430 to the wall 1210 before the any portion of thevirtual screen 1430 touches the wall. In these implementations, the ARsystem may simulate a magnetic effect between the wall and the virtualobject. For example, when the virtual screen 1430 is sufficiently close(such as smaller than the threshold distance), the object isautomatically attracted to the wall without further efforts from theuser.

The distance between the virtual screen 1430 and the wall 1210 may bemeasured in a variety of ways. For example, it may be calculated basedon the displacement between the center of the gravity of the virtualscreen 1430 and the surface of the wall 1210. In some embodiments, whenthe objects are associated with vectors describing the positions of theobjects, the AR system can calculate the Euclidean distance using thevector for the virtual screen 1430 and the vector for the wall 1210. Thedistance may also be calculated based on a component of the vector. Forexample, the ARD may calculate the positional difference between thevector and the virtual screen 1430 in the horizontal axis as thedistance.

The threshold distance can depend on affordances relating to the virtualobject. For example, the virtual screen 1430 is associated with a size(e.g., a horizontal size, of vertical size, a thickness, a diagonalsize, etc.), and the threshold distance may be a fraction of the size.As an example, if the threshold distance is approximately equal to thevertical size of the screen, the AR system may begin to orient thescreen towards its destination position and orientation when the screenbecomes within the vertical size distance from the wall. As anotherexample, if the threshold distance is smaller than the vertical size ofthe screen, the AR system may not begin to orient the virtual screen1430 until the virtual screen 1430 gets much closer to the wall. Invarious implementations, the threshold distance can be set by the useror can be set to default values (e.g., such as the size of the object).The threshold distance may change based on the user's experience withthe AR system. For example, if the user finds that small thresholddistance leads to rapid reorientation of the virtual objects and isdistracting, the user may reset the threshold distance to be larger sothat the reorientation occurs more gradually over a greater distance.

When the virtual screen 1430 is not parallel to the wall, the AR systemmay use the portion of the virtual screen 1430 that is closest to thewall (such as the bottom portion of the virtual screen 1430 shown inFIG. 14B) as an endpoint when calculating the distance. Using thismethod, when the distance becomes sufficiently small or zero, the ARsystem can detect that at least a portion of the virtual screen 1430 hastouched the wall 1210. However, if the distance is calculated based onthe displacement between the wall 1210 and the center of gravity of thevirtual screen 1430, the distance may be greater than 0 (see FIG. 14B)when the AR system detects the collision. This is because when thevirtual screen 1430 is not parallel to the wall 1210, a portion of thevirtual screen 1430 may reach the wall 1210 before the center of thegravity of the virtual screen 1430 reaches the wall 1210.

In various implementations, the virtual object may have an affordancethat only one surface of the virtual object displays content (e.g., a TVscreen or a painting) or has a texture that is designed to be visible tothe user. For example, for a virtual TV object, only one surface of theobject may act as a screen and display content to the user. As a result,the AR system may orient the virtual object so that the surface with thecontent faces the user instead of the wall. For example, with referenceto FIGS. 14A, 14B, and 14C, the surface normal of the virtual screen1430 may initially face the ceiling (instead of the table) so that theuser can see the content of the virtual screen 1430 when he stands infront of the table. However, if the user simply lifts the virtual screen1430 and attaches it to the wall 1210, the surface normal may face thewall instead of the user. As a result, the user may see the back surfaceof the virtual screen 1430 without seeing the content. To make sure theuser can still view the content when the virtual screen 1430 is moved tothe wall 1210, the AR system can rotate the virtual screen 1430 180degrees around an axis so that the surface with the content can face theuser (not the wall). With this rotation, the side 1434 which was thebottom side of the virtual screen 1430 in FIG. 14B becomes the top sidein FIG. 14C while the side 1432 which was the top side of the virtualscreen 1430 in FIG. 14B becomes bottom side in FIG. 14C.

In addition to or in alternative to flipping the virtual object along anaxis as described with reference to FIG. 14C, the AR system may alsorotate the virtual object around other axes such that the virtual objectretains the same orientation as before it was moved to the destinationlocation. With reference to FIGS. 14A and 14D, the virtual TV screen1430 (and its contents) may initially be at a portrait orientation onthe table 1242. However, after the virtual TV screen 1430 is moved tothe wall 1210 as shown in FIGS. 14B and 14C, the virtual TV screen isoriented in a landscape orientation. To retain the same user experienceas when the virtual screen 1430 is on the table 1242, the AR system mayrotate the virtual TV screen 1430 90 degrees so that the virtual TVscreen 1430 appears to be in the portrait orientation (as shown in FIG.14D). With this rotation, the side 1434 which was shown as the top ofthe screen 1430 in FIG. 14C becomes the left side of the screen 1430 inFIG. 14D while the side 1432 which was shown as the bottom side of thescreen 1430 in FIG. 14C becomes the right side of the screen 1430 inFIG. 14D.

FIGS. 15A, 15B, and 15C illustrate side views of an example of attachingand orienting a virtual object. In this example, the virtual object isdepicted to be a planar object (e.g., a virtual screen) for purpose ofillustration, but the virtual object is not limited to a planar shape.Similar to FIG. 14A, the virtual screen 1430 in FIG. 15A is movingtowards the wall 1210 in the direction of 1440 a. The AR system candisplay the focus indicator 1450 to indicate a position associated witha user (e.g., such as the user's gaze direction, or a position of theuser's user input device 466). In this example, the focus indicator 1450is on the virtual screen 1430 which can indicate a selection of thevirtual screen 1430. The virtual screen 1430 is at an angle 1552 withthe wall 1210 (shown in FIG. 15B). When the virtual screen 1430 touchesthe surface 1510 a of the wall 1210 as shown in FIG. 15B, the AR systemcan rotate the virtual screen 1430 in the angular direction 1440 b. As aresult, as shown in FIG. 15C, the angle formed between the virtualscreen 1430 and the surface 1510 a of the wall 1210 is decreased fromthe angle 1552 to the angle 1554, and in FIG. 15D, the angle has beenreduced to zero, because the screen 1430 is flat against the wall 1210.In this example, the screen 1430 remains on the wall (due to the“stickiness” of the wall) even after the user has moved slightly awayfrom the wall 1210 (where the focus indicator 1450 is no longer on thevirtual object 1430).

Although the example figures described herein show that thereorientation of the virtual object occurs after the virtual objecttouches the wall, it should be noted that the examples here are forillustration purposes and are not intended to be limiting. Thereorientation can happen before the virtual object touches a physicalobject. For example, the AR system can calculate the surface normal ofthe wall and the virtual object, and can orient the virtual object whilethe virtual object is moving towards the wall. In addition, although theexamples provided herein show that the bottom portion of the virtualobject touches the wall first, it should be noted that any otherportions of the object may also touch the wall first. For example, whenthe virtual object is parallel to the wall, the whole virtual object maycollide with the wall at the same time. As another example, when theobject is a 3D cup, the cup holder can collide with the wall before anyother parts of the cup.

Simulated Attractive Effect Between a Virtual Object and a PhysicalObject

As described herein, the AR system can simulate the effect of anattractive force between a virtual object and a physical or virtualobject, such as a wall or a table (e.g., gravity in FIGS. 12A-12B or amagnetic attraction or a “stickiness” as shown in FIGS. 13A-13D or14A-14D). As the distance between the virtual object and the physicalobject becomes less than a threshold, the AR system can automaticallyattach the virtual object to the physical object as if the two objectswere attracted together due to the attractive force (e.g., theattraction of opposite poles of magnets or the downward pull ofgravity).

In some cases, the AR system may utilize multiple attractive forces,which may more accurately represent trajectories of physical objects.For example, with reference to FIGS. 14A-14B, a user who wants to movethe virtual screen 1430 from the table 1242 to the wall 1210 may make agesture to toss the virtual screen 1430 onto the wall 1210. The ARsystem can utilize a magnetic attractive force to attach the screen 1430to the wall 1210 as described above. Additionally, the AR system canutilize a downward gravity force to represent an arc-like trajectory ofthe screen 1430 as it moves toward the wall 1210. The use of one or moreattractive forces by the AR system can cause virtual objects to appearto move and interact with other objects in the user's environment in amore natural way, because the virtual objects act somewhat similarly tothe movement of physical objects. This can advantageously lead to a morenatural and realistic user experience.

In other situations, a user may want to move a virtual object away froman object to which the virtual object is currently attached. However,sometimes, the AR system may not be able to differentiate whether amovement of the user indicates the intent of detaching the virtualobject from the user interactions of the virtual object when the virtualobject is attached to the wall. As an example, while a user is playing agame using a virtual screen attached to the wall, the user may need tomove his totem around to find or interact with friends or enemies. Thistype of game movement may coincide with a type of movement for detachingthe virtual object from the wall. By only detaching the virtual screenif the user's movements are sufficiently above a suitable threshold, thevirtual screen will not be inadvertently detached during gameplay.Additionally, the user usually cannot keep his pose or the user inputdevice still for long periods of time. As a result, the virtual objectmay accidentally be detached by minor movements of the user when theuser does not intend to detach the virtual object. Accordingly, by onlydetaching the virtual object if the user's movements are sufficientlyabove a suitable threshold, minor movements or twitches by the user willnot inadvertently detach virtual objects from their intended location ororientation.

To solve these problems and to improve the AR system, the AR system cansimulate an attractive force between the virtual object and the physicalobject so that the user may not immediately detach the virtual objectfrom the other object unless the change of the user's position isgreater than a threshold value. For example, as shown in FIG. 15D, thescreen 1430 is attached to the wall 1210. The user can move his userinput device such that the focus indicator 1450 is moved away from thewall. However, the virtual screen 1430 may still be attached to thesurface 1510 a due to the simulated attractive effect between the screenand the wall. As the focus indicator moves farther away and exceeds athreshold distance between the screen 1430 and the focus indicator 1450,the AR system may detach the virtual screen 1430 from the wall 1210 asshown in FIG. 15E. This interaction provided by the AR system acts as ifthere were an invisible virtual string between the focus indicator 1450and the screen 1430. When the distance between the focus indicator 1450and the screen 1430 exceeds the length of the virtual string, thevirtual string becomes taut and detaches the screen from the wall 1210.The length of the virtual string represents the threshold distance.

In addition to or in alternative to a threshold distance, the AR systemcan also use other factors to determine whether to detach the virtualobject. For example, the AR system may measure acceleration or speed ofthe user's movements. The AR system may measure the acceleration and thespeed using the IMUs described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 4. If theacceleration or the speed exceeds a threshold, the AR system may detachthe virtual object from the physical object. In some cases, the rate ofchange of the acceleration (known as “jerk”) can be measured, and if thejerk provided by the user is greater than a jerk threshold, the virtualobject is detached. Implementations of the AR system that utilize anacceleration threshold or a jerk threshold may more naturally representhow users detach objects from other objects. For example, to remove aphysical object that is stuck onto a wall, a user may grab a portion ofthe physical object and yank it from the wall. The representation ofthis yank in the virtual world can be modeled using acceleration and/orjerk thresholds.

In another implementation, the AR system may simulate other physicalforce such as friction or elasticity. For example, the AR system maysimulate the interaction between the focus indicator 1450 and the screen1430 as if there were a virtual rubber band connecting them. As thedistance between the focus indicator 1450 and the screen 1430 increases,the virtual pull of the virtual rubber band increases, and when thevirtual pull is greater than a force threshold that represents thestickiness of the wall 1210, the screen 1430 is detached from the wall1210. In another example, when the virtual object appears on ahorizontal surface of a physical object, the AR system may simulate theinteraction between a focus indicator and the virtual object as if therewere a virtual friction existing between the virtual object and thehorizontal surface. The user may drag the focus indicator along thehorizontal surface while the AR system may only begin to move thevirtual object when the force applied by the user is sufficient toovercome the virtual friction.

Accordingly, in various implementations, the AR system can utilizedistance, speed, acceleration, and/or jerk measurements withcorresponding thresholds to determine whether to detach a virtual objectfrom another object. Likewise, the AR system can utilize thresholds forthe attractive force between objects (which represent stickiness,gravity, or magnetic attraction) to determine how strongly virtualobjects are attached to other objects. For example, a virtual objectwhich is intended to be immovably placed on another object may beassociated with a very high attraction threshold so that it is verydifficult for a user to detach the virtual object. Unlike the physicalworld where physical objects' properties are set by its weight and soforth, in the virtual world, a virtual object's properties can bechanged. For example, if the user intentionally wants to move an“immovable” virtual object, the user may instruct the AR system totemporarily change the virtual object's settings so that its associatedthresholds are much lower. After moving the virtual object to a newposition, the user can instruct the AR system to reset the thresholds ofthe virtual object so that it again is immovable.

When the virtual object is detached from the physical object, theorientation of the virtual object can remain the same as when thevirtual object is attached to the physical object. For example, in FIG.15D, when the virtual screen 1430 is attached to the wall, the virtualscreen 1430 is parallel to the surface 1510 a of the wall. Accordingly,as the virtual screen 1430 moves away from the wall in FIG. 15E, thevirtual screen 1430 may remain parallel to the wall 1430.

In some embodiments, when the virtual object is detached from the wall,the AR system may change the virtual object's orientation back to itsoriginal orientation before the virtual object was attached to the wall.For example, as shown in FIG. 15F, when the virtual screen 1430 isdetached from the wall 1210, the AR system may revert the orientation ofthe virtual screen 1430 back to be the same orientation as the one shownin FIGS. 15A and 15B.

Once the virtual screen 1430 is detached from the wall 1210, the usercan move the object 1430 around and re-attach it to the wall (or toanother object). As shown in FIGS. 15G and 15H, when the user moves thevirtual screen 1430 back to the wall 1210, the virtual object 1430 canbe oriented in the direction of 1440 c and attached to the surface 1510b of the wall 1210. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 15D, the user couldreattach the object 1430 to the left-hand side of the wall 1210 (e.g.,compare the position of the virtual screen 1430 in FIG. 15D with itsposition in FIG. 15H).

Although the examples in FIGS. 14A-14D and 15A-15H are described withreference to automatically attaching a virtual object to a wall, thesame techniques can also be applied for automatically attaching avirtual object to another object such as a table. For example, the ARsystem can simulate the effect of a downward gravity force when avirtual book is close to the table and automatically orient and show thevirtual book on top of the table without further user efforts. Asanother example, the user can move a virtual painting to the floor usinghand gestures and drop it onto the floor (via virtual gravity). Thecurrent position of the user may be indicated by a focus indicator. Asthe user moves the painting to the floor, the focus indicator can followthe user's position. When the virtual painting is close to a table inthe user's environment, however, the virtual painting may beaccidentally attached to the table because the table may be on top ofthe floor. The user can continue moving the focus indicator in thedirection of floor with his hand, head, or eye gestures. When thedistance between the location of the focus indicator and the table issufficiently large, the AR system may detach the virtual picture fromthe table and move it to the location of the focus indicator. The usercan then continue moving the virtual picture until it nears the floor,where the AR system can drop it into position under virtual gravity.

Additionally or alternatively, the techniques described herein can alsobe used for putting a virtual object inside of another object. Forexample, a user may have a virtual box which contains photographs of theuser. When the AR system receives an indication of placing a photographinto the virtual box, the AR system can automatically move thephotograph inside of the virtual box and align the photograph with thevirtual box.

Example Methods for Automatically Snapping and Orienting a VirtualObject

FIG. 16 is an example method for attaching and orienting a virtualobject. The process 1600 shown in FIG. 16 may be performed by the ARsystem 200 described with reference to FIG. 2.

At block 1610, the AR system can identify a virtual object in a user'senvironment that the user wants to interact with. This virtual objectcan also be referred to as the target virtual object. The AR system canidentify the target virtual object based on a pose of the user. Forexample, the AR system may select a virtual object as a target virtualobject when it intersects with the user's direction of gaze. The ARsystem may also identify the target virtual object when the useractuates a user input device. For example, when user clicks the userinput device, the AR system may automatically designate a target virtualobject based on the current location of the user input device.

The target virtual object may have a first location and a firstorientation. In some embodiments, the location and orientation of thetarget virtual object may be expressed in a vector form. As the targetvirtual object moves around, the values in the vectors may be updatedaccordingly.

At block 1620, the AR system can receive an indication to move thetarget virtual object to a destination object. For example, the user maypoint to a table and actuate a user input device indicating theintention of moving the target virtual object to the table. As anotherexample, the user may drag the virtual object in the direction of a wallto place the virtual object to the wall. The destination object can havea location and an orientation. In some implementations, like the targetvirtual object, the location and the orientation of the destinationobject may also be expressed in a vector form.

At block 1630, the AR system can calculate a distance between the targetvirtual object and the destination object based on the location of thetarget virtual object and the location of the destination object. The ARsystem can compare the calculated distance with a threshold distance. Ifthe distance is less than the threshold distance, as shown at block1640, the AR system can automatically orient and attach the targetvirtual object to the destination object.

In some implementations, the AR system may include multiple thresholddistances (or speeds, accelerations, or jerks) where each thresholddistance is associated with a type of action. For example, the AR systemmay set a first threshold distance where AR system can automaticallyrotate the virtual object if the distance between the target virtualobject and the destination object is less than or equal to the thresholddistance. The AR system may also set a second threshold distance wherethe AR system can automatically attach the target virtual object to thedestination object when the distance is less than the second thresholddistance. In this example, if the first threshold distance is the sameas the second threshold distance, then the AR system can simultaneouslybegin attaching and orienting the target virtual object when thethreshold distance is met. If the first threshold distance is greaterthan the second threshold distance, the AR system may begin to orientthe target virtual object before the AR system begins to automaticallyattach the target virtual object to the destination object. On the otherhand, if the first threshold distance is less than the second thresholddistance, the AR system may first attach the target virtual object tothe destination object, and then orient the target virtual object (suchas when a portion of the target virtual object is already attached tothe destination object). As another example, the AR system may detachvirtual objects if a user movement exceeds a corresponding speed,acceleration, or jerk threshold.

The AR system can orient the target virtual object along multiple axeswhen orienting the target virtual object. For example, the AR system canrotate the virtual object such that the surface normal of the virtualobject is facing the user (instead of facing the surface of thedestination object). The AR system can also orient the virtual objectsuch that the virtual object appears to be in the same orientation asthe destination object. The AR system can further adjust the orientationof the virtual object so that the user does not have view the content ofthe virtual object at an uncomfortable angle. In some embodiments, theAR system may simulate the effect of magnetic attraction and/or gravitywhen attaching the two objects together. For example, the AR system canshow the effect of attracting a virtual TV screen to a wall when thevirtual TV screen is close to the wall. As another example, the ARsystem may simulate the free fall motion when a user indicates theintention of putting a virtual book onto a table.

Besides magnetic attraction, stickiness, and gravitational effects, theAR system may also simulate other physical effects as if the virtualobject were a physical object. For example, the AR system may assignmass to virtual objects. When two virtual objects collide, the AR systemmay simulate the effect of momentum such that the two virtual objectsmay move together for a certain distance after the collision.

Example Methods for Detaching a Virtual Object

FIG. 17 is an example method for detaching a virtual object from anotherobject in the user's environment. The process 1700 shown in FIG. 17 maybe performed by the AR system described with reference to FIG. 2.

At block 1710, the AR system can identify a target virtual object in auser's field of regard (FOR). The FOR comprises a portion of theenvironment around the user that is capable of being perceived by theuser via the AR system. The target virtual object may be attached toanother object in the FOR. The AR system may assign a first position tothe target object when it is attached to the other object.

At block 1720, the AR system can receive an indication to move thetarget virtual object to a second position in the user's FOR. Theindication may be a change in the user's pose (such as moving his hand),a movement of the user input device (such as moving the totem), or ahand gesture on the user input device (such as moving along a trajectoryon a touchpad).

At block 1730, The AR system can determine whether the indication ofmovements meets a threshold condition for detaching the target virtualobject from the other object. If the threshold condition is met, asshown in block 1742 the AR system may detach the virtual object and moveit to the position of the user (e.g., as indicated by a focusindicator). The threshold condition may be based on speed/accelerationof the movement and/or the position change. For example, when the userwants to detach a virtual object from a wall, the AR system cancalculate how far away the user has moved his totem from the wall. Ifthe AR system determines that the distance between the totem and thewall meets a threshold distance, then the AR system may detach thevirtual object. As an example, when the user moves his totemsufficiently fast, which meets a threshold speed and/or thresholdacceleration, the AR system may also detach the virtual object from thewall.

If the AR system determines that the threshold condition is not met, theAR system may not detach the virtual object as shown in block 1744. Insome embodiments, the AR system may provide a focus indicator showingthe current position of the user. For example, when the thresholdcondition is not met, the AR system may show the focus indicator at theuser's current position while showing the virtual object as still beingattached to the other object in the environment.

Although the examples described herein are with reference to moving onevirtual object, it should be noted that these examples are not limiting.For example, the AR system may use the techniques described herein toautomatically orient, attach, and detach a group of virtual objects fromanother object in the environment.

Additional Embodiments

In a 1st aspect, a method for automatically snapping a target virtualobject to a destination object in a three-dimensional (3D) environmentof a user, the method comprising: under control of an augmented reality(AR) system comprising computer hardware, the AR system configured topermit user interaction with objects in the 3D environment of the user,the AR system comprising a user input device: identifying a targetvirtual object and a destination object in the 3D environment of theuser, wherein the target virtual object is associated with a firstorientation and a first location and wherein the destination object isassociated with a second orientation and a second location; calculatinga distance between the target virtual object and the destination objectbased at least partly on the first location and the second location;comparing the distance with a threshold distance; automaticallyattaching the target virtual object to a surface the destination objectin response to a comparison that the distance is less than or equal tothe threshold distance; and automatically orienting the target virtualobject to align the target virtual object with the destination objectbased at least partly on the first orientation and the secondorientation.

In a 2nd aspect, the method of aspect 1, wherein identifying the targetvirtual object and the destination object is based on at least one ofthe following: a head pose, an eye pose, a body pose, or a hand gesture.

In a 3rd aspect, the method of any one of aspects 1-2, wherein thedestination object comprises at least one of: a physical object or avirtual object.

In a 4th aspect, the method of aspect 3, wherein the destination objectcomprises a wall or a table.

In a 5th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 1-4, wherein the firstorientation or the second orientation comprises at least one of: avertical orientation or a horizontal orientation.

In a 6th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 1-5, whereincalculating the distance comprises calculating a displacement betweenthe target virtual object and the destination object.

In a 7th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 1-6, wherein thethreshold distance is zero.

In an 8th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 1-7, whereinautomatically orienting the target virtual object to align the targetvirtual object with the destination object comprises at least one of thefollowing: automatically orienting the target virtual object to cause asurface normal of the target virtual object to face the AR system;automatically orienting the target virtual object to cause a surfacenormal of the target virtual object to be perpendicular to a surface ofthe destination object; or automatically orienting the target virtualobject to cause a surface normal of the target virtual object to beparallel to a normal of the destination object.

In a 9th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 1-8, furthercomprising assigning a focus indicator at least one of: the targetvirtual object or the destination object.

In a 10th aspect, an augmented reality system comprising computerhardware and a user input device, the augmented reality system isconfigured to perform any one of the methods in claims 1-9.

In an 11th aspect, a method for automatically snapping a target virtualobject to a destination object in a three-dimensional (3D) environmentof a user, the method comprising: under control of an augmented reality(AR) system comprising computer hardware, the AR system configured topermit user interaction with objects in the 3D environment of the user,the AR system comprising a user input device and a pose sensorconfigured to measure a pose of the user: identifying a target virtualobject in the 3D environment of the user, wherein the target virtualobject is associated with a first location and a first orientation;receiving, using the pose sensor, an indication from the user to movethe target virtual object to a destination object, wherein thedestination object is associated with a second location and a secondorientation; calculating a trajectory between the target virtual objectand the destination object based at least partly on the first locationand the second location; moving the target virtual object along thetrajectory towards the destination object; calculating a distancebetween the target virtual object and the destination object based atleast partly on a current location of the target virtual object and thesecond location; comparing the distance with a threshold distance;automatically attaching the target virtual object to the destinationobject in response to a comparison that the distance is less than orequal to the threshold distance; and automatically orienting the targetvirtual object to align the target virtual object with the destinationobject based at least partly on the first orientation and the secondorientation.

In a 12th aspect, the method of aspect 11, wherein the pose sensorcomprises at least one of: an outward-facing imaging system, an inertialmeasurement unit, or an inward-facing imaging system.

In a 13th aspect, the method of aspect 12, further comprising: assigninga focus indicator to a current position of the user, wherein the currentposition of the user is determined based at least partly on the pose ofthe user or a position associated with the user input device.

In a 14th aspect, the method of aspect 13, wherein the pose comprises atleast one of a head pose, an eye pose, or a body pose.

In a 15th aspect, the method of aspect 14, wherein receiving theindication from the user to move the target virtual object to thedestination object comprises: identifying, using the pose sensor, achange in the pose of the user; identifying the destination object basedat least partly on the pose of the user; and receiving a confirmationfrom the user to move the target virtual object to the destinationobject.

In a 16th aspect, the method of aspect 13, wherein receiving theindication from the user to move the target virtual object to thedestination object comprises at least one of: receiving an indication ofthe destination object from the user input device; or receiving aconfirmation from the user to move the target virtual object to thedestination object.

In a 17th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 15-16, wherein theconfirmation comprises at least one of a change in the pose of the useror a hand gesture on the user input device.

In an 18th aspect, an augmented reality system comprising computerhardware, a user input device, and a pose sensor, the augmented realitysystem is configured to perform any one of the methods in aspects 11-17.

In a 19th aspect, a method for snapping a target virtual object to adestination object in a three-dimensional (3D) environment of a user,the method comprising: under control of an augmented reality (AR) systemcomprising computer hardware, the AR system configured to permit userinteraction with objects in the 3D environment of the user: identifyinga target virtual object and a destination object in the 3D environmentof the user; receiving an indication to attach the target virtual objectto the destination object; determining an affordance associated with atleast one of the target virtual object or the destination object;automatically orienting the target virtual object based at least partlyon the affordance; and automatically attaching the target virtual objectto the destination object.

In a 20th aspect, the method of aspect 19, wherein identifying thetarget virtual object and the destination object is based on at leastone of the following: a head pose, an eye pose, a body pose, a handgesture, or an input from a user input device.

In a 21st aspect, the method of any one of aspects 19-20, wherein thedestination object comprises at least one of: a physical object or avirtual object.

In a 22nd aspect, the method of aspect 21, wherein the destinationobject comprises a vertical surface or a horizontal surface.

In a 23rd aspect, the method of any one of aspects 19-22, whereinreceiving the indication to attach the target virtual object to thedestination object comprises one or more of the following: detecting achange in a pose of the user; or receiving an indication of thedestination object from an user input device.

In a 24th aspect, the method of aspect 23, wherein the pose comprises atleast one of: a head pose, an eye pose, or a body pose.

In a 25th aspect, the method of any one aspects 19-24, wherein theaffordance is determined based on one or more of the following: afunction, an orientation, a type, a location, a shape, a size, or anenvironment of the target virtual object or the destination object.

In a 26th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 19-25, whereinautomatically orienting the target virtual object comprises one or moreof: automatically orienting the target virtual object to cause a surfacenormal of the target virtual object to face the AR system; automaticallyorienting the target virtual object to cause a surface normal of thetarget virtual object to be perpendicular to a surface of thedestination object; or automatically orienting the target virtual objectto cause a surface normal of the target virtual object to be parallel toa normal of the destination object.

In a 27th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 19-26, whereinautomatically attaching the target virtual object to the destinationobject is performed by simulating an attractive force between the targetvirtual object and the destination object.

In a 28th aspect, the method of aspect 27, wherein the attractive forcecomprises one or more of the following: gravity or magnetic attraction.

In a 29th aspect, an augmented reality system comprising computerhardware, the augmented reality system is configured to perform any oneof the methods in aspects 19-28.

In a 30th aspect, a method for detaching a target virtual object fromanother object in a three-dimensional (3D) environment, the methodcomprising: under control of an augmented reality (AR) system comprisingcomputer hardware, the AR system configured to permit user interactionwith objects in a field of regard (FOR) of a user, the FOR comprising aportion of the environment around the user that is capable of beingperceived by the user via the AR system: receiving a selection, by theuser, of a target virtual object, wherein the target virtual object isassociated with a first position in the FOR of the user; displaying, tothe user, a focus indicator associated with the target virtual object;receiving, from the user, an indication to move the target virtualobject; displaying, to the user based at least partly on the indication,the focus indicator at an updated position; calculating a distancebetween the first position of the target virtual object and the updatedposition of the focus indicator; comparing the distance with a thresholddistance; in response to a comparison that the distance is greater thanor equal to the threshold distance, moving the target virtual objectfrom the first position to a second position associated with the updatedposition of the focus indicator; and displaying, to the user, the targetvirtual object at the second position.

In a 31st aspect, the method of aspect 30, wherein receiving aselection, by the user, of the target virtual object comprises at leastone of the following: detecting a change in a pose of a user; orreceiving an input from a user input device.

In a 32nd aspect, the method of any one of aspects 30-31, wherein theother object comprises at least one of: a physical object or a virtualobject.

In a 33rd aspect, the method of aspect 32, wherein the other objectcomprises a wall or a table.

In a 34th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 30-33, whereinreceiving an indication to move the target virtual object comprises atleast one of: detecting a movement of a user input device; detecting ahand gesture on the user input device; or detecting a change in a poseof the user.

In a 35th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 31-34, wherein thepose of the user comprises: a head pose, an eye pose, or a body pose.

In a 36th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 30-35, whereincalculating the distance comprises calculating a displacement betweenthe first position and the updated position.

In a 37th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 30-36, wherein thethreshold distance is specified by the user.

In a 38th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 30-37, whereindisplaying, to the user, the target virtual object at the secondposition comprises: determining an orientation associated with thetarget virtual object before the target virtual object touches the otherobject; and displaying to the user the target virtual object with theorientation at the second position.

In a 39th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 1-38, whereindisplaying, to the user, the target virtual object at the secondposition comprises: determining an orientation associated with thetarget virtual object at the first position; and displaying to the userthe target virtual object with the orientation at the second position.

In a 40th aspect, a method for detaching a target virtual object fromanother object in a three-dimensional (3D) environment, the methodcomprising: under control of an augmented reality (AR) system comprisingcomputer hardware, the AR system configured to permit user interactionwith objects in a field of regard (FOR) of a user, the FOR comprising aportion of the environment around the user that is capable of beingperceived by the user via the AR system: receiving a selection of atarget virtual object, wherein the target virtual object is associatedwith a first position in the FOR of the user and at least a portion ofthe target virtual object touches another object; displaying, to theuser, a focus indicator associated with the target virtual object;receiving, from the user, an indication to detach the target virtualobject from the other object; displaying, to the user based at leastpartly on the indication, the focus indicator at an updated position;determining whether the indication meets a threshold condition fordetaching the target virtual object from the other object; in responseto a determination that the threshold condition is met, displaying, tothe user, the target virtual object at a second position associated withthe updated position of the focus indicator; and in response to adetermination that the threshold condition is not met, displaying, tothe user, the target virtual object at the first position.

In a 41st aspect, the method of aspect 40, wherein receiving a selectionof a target virtual object comprises at least one of the following:detecting a change in a pose of a user; or receiving an input from auser input device.

In a 42nd aspect, the method of any one of aspects 40-41, wherein theother object comprises at least one of: a physical object or a virtualobject.

In a 43rd aspect, the method of aspect 42, wherein the other objectcomprises a wall or a table.

In a 44th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 40-43, whereinreceiving an indication to detach the target virtual object comprises atleast one of: detecting a movement of a user input device; detecting ahand gesture on the user input device; or detecting a change in a poseof the user.

In a 45th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 41-44, wherein thepose of the user comprises: a head pose, an eye pose, or a body pose.

In a 46th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 41-45, wherein thethreshold condition for detaching the target virtual object from theother object comprises at least one of: a distance between the firstposition and the updated position is greater than or equal to athreshold distance; a speed for moving from the first position to theupdated position is greater than or equal to a threshold speed; anacceleration for moving away from the first position is greater than orequal to a threshold acceleration; or a jerk for moving away from thefirst position is greater than or equal to a threshold jerk.

In a 47th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 41-46, whereindisplaying, to the user, the target virtual object at the secondposition comprises: determining an orientation associated with thetarget virtual object before the target virtual object touches the otherobject; and displaying to the user the target virtual object with theorientation at the second position.

In a 48th aspect, the method of any one of the claims aspects 41-47,wherein displaying, to the user, the target virtual object at the secondposition comprises: determining an orientation associated with thetarget virtual object at the first position; and displaying to the userthe target virtual object with the orientation at the second position.

In a 49th aspect, a method for detaching a target virtual object fromanother object in a three-dimensional (3D) environment of a user, themethod comprising: under control of an augmented reality (AR) systemcomprising computer hardware, the AR system configured to permit userinteraction with objects in the 3D environment of the user: receiving aselection of a target virtual object, wherein the target virtual objectis attached to another object in the 3D environment at an initialposition; displaying, to the user, a focus indicator associated with thetarget virtual object at the initial position; receiving, from the user,an indication to detach the target virtual object from the other object;displaying, to the user based at least partly on the indication, thefocus indicator at an updated position; determining whether theindication meets a threshold condition for detaching the target virtualobject from the other object; in response to a determination that thethreshold condition is met, detaching the target virtual object based atleast partly on the indication; and in response to a determination thatthe threshold condition is not met, displaying, to the user, the targetvirtual object at the initial position.

In a 50th aspect, the method of aspect 49, wherein receiving a selectionof a target virtual object comprises at least one of the following:detecting a change in a pose of a user; or receiving an input from auser input device.

In a 51st aspect, the method of any one of aspects 49-50, wherein theother object comprises at least one of: a physical object or a virtualobject.

In a 52nd aspect, the method of aspect 51, wherein the other objectcomprises a vertical surface or a horizontal surface.

In a 53rd aspect, the method of any one of aspects 49-52, whereinreceiving an indication to detach the target virtual object from theother object comprises at least one of: detecting a movement of a userinput device; detecting a hand gesture on the user input device; ordetecting a change in a pose of the user.

In a 54th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 49-53, wherein thethreshold condition for detaching the target virtual object from theother object comprises at least one of: a distance between the initialposition and the updated position is greater than or equal to athreshold distance; a speed for moving from the initial position to theupdated position is greater than or equal to a threshold speed; anacceleration for moving away from the initial position is greater thanor equal to a threshold acceleration; or a jerk for moving away from theinitial position is greater than or equal to a threshold jerk.

In a 55th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 49-54, whereindetaching the target virtual object is performed by simulating aphysical force.

In a 56th aspect, the method of aspect 55, wherein the physical forcecomprises at least one of the following: gravity, magnetic attraction,friction, or elasticity.

In a 57th aspect, an augmented reality system comprising computerhardware, the augmented reality system is configured to perform any oneof the methods in aspects 30-56.

In a 58th aspect, an augmented reality (AR) system for automaticallyrepositioning a virtual object in a three-dimensional (3D) environment,the AR system comprising: an AR display configured to present virtualcontent in a 3D view; a hardware processor in communication with the ARdisplay, the hardware processor programmed to: identify a target virtualobject in the 3D environment of the user, wherein the target virtualobject is assigned one vector representing a first location and a firstorientation; receive an indication to attach the target virtual objectto a destination object, wherein the destination object is assigned atleast one vector representing a second location and a secondorientation; calculate a trajectory between the target virtual objectand the destination object based at least partly on the first locationand the second location; move the target virtual object along thetrajectory towards the destination object; track a current location ofthe target virtual object; calculate a distance between the targetvirtual object and the destination object based at least partly on thecurrent location of the target virtual object and the second location;determine whether the distance of the target virtual object and thedestination virtual object is less than a threshold distance;automatically attach the target virtual object to the destination objectand orient the target virtual object to the second orientation inresponse to a comparison that the distance is less than or equal to thethreshold distance; and render, by the AR display, the target virtualobject at the second location with the second orientation where thetarget virtual object is overlaid on the destination object.

In a 59th aspect, the AR system of aspect 58, wherein the hardwareprocessor is further programmed to: analyze affordances of at least oneof the target virtual object, the destination object, or theenvironment; and to automatically orient the target virtual object, thehardware processor is programmed to rotate the target virtual object toalign a first normal of the target virtual object with a second normalof the destination object.

In a 60th aspect, the AR system of aspect 59, wherein the affordancescomprise at least one of: a function, an orientation, a type, alocation, a shape, or a size.

In a 61st aspect, the AR system of any one of aspects 58-60, wherein toautomatically attach the target virtual object, the hardware processoris programmed to: simulate an attractive force between the targetvirtual object and the destination object, wherein the attractive forcecomprises at least one of gravity, an elastic force, an adhesive force,or a magnetic attraction.

In a 62nd aspect, the AR system of any one of aspects 58-61, wherein tocalculate the distance, the hardware processor is programmed tocalculate a displacement between the current location of the targetvirtual object and the second location associated with the destinationobject.

In a 63rd aspect, the AR system of aspect 62, wherein the thresholddistance is zero.

In a 64th aspect, the AR system of any one of aspects 58-63, wherein theindication to attach the target virtual object is determined from atleast one of: an actuation of a user input device or a pose of a user.

In a 65th aspect, the AR system of aspect 64, wherein the hardwareprocessor is further programmed to: assign a focus indicator to acurrent position of the user, wherein the current position of the useris determined based at least partly on the pose of the user or aposition associated with the user input device.

In a 66th aspect, the AR system of any one of aspects 58-65, wherein thehardware processor is further programmed to: receive an indication todetach the target virtual object from the destination object, whereinthe indication is associated with a change in the user's currentposition; determine whether a threshold condition for detaching thetarget virtual object is met based at least partly on the receivedindication; in response to a determination that the threshold conditionis met: detach the target virtual object from the destination object;move the target virtual object from the second location associated withthe destination object to a third location; and render the targetvirtual object at the third location.

In a 67th aspect, the AR system of aspect 66, wherein in response to thedetermination that the threshold condition is met, the hardwareprocessor is further programmed to: retain the second orientation forthe target virtual object while moving the target virtual object to thethird location.

In a 68th aspect, the AR system of aspect 67, wherein the third locationcorresponds to a position of the focus indicator which corresponds tothe current position of the user.

In a 69th aspect, the AR system of aspect 68, wherein the thresholdcondition for detaching the target virtual object from the other objectcomprises at least one of: a second distance between the second locationwhere the target virtual object is attached to the destination objectand the position of the focus indicator is greater than or equal to asecond threshold distance; a speed for moving from the second locationto the position of the focus indicator is greater than or equal to athreshold speed; an acceleration for moving away from the secondlocation is greater than or equal to a threshold acceleration; or a jerkfor moving away from the second location is greater than or equal to athreshold jerk.

In a 70th aspect, the AR system of aspect 69, wherein the hardwareprocessor is programmed to simulate a physical force when detaching thetarget virtual object from the destination object, wherein the physicalforce comprises at least one of a friction or an elasticity.

In a 71st aspect, a method for automatically repositioning a virtualobject in a three-dimensional (3D) environment, the method comprising:under control of an augmented reality (AR) system comprising computerhardware, the AR system configured to permit user interactions withobjects in a 3D environment: identifying a target virtual object in theuser's 3D environment, the target virtual object having a first positionand a first orientation; receiving an indication to reposition thetarget virtual object with respect to a destination object; identifyingparameters for repositioning the target virtual object; analyzingaffordances associated with at least one of the 3D environment, thetarget virtual object, and the destination object; calculating values ofthe parameters for repositioning the target virtual object based on theaffordances; determining a second position and a second orientation forthe target virtual object and a movement of the target virtual objectbased on the values of the parameters for repositioning the targetvirtual object; and rendering the target virtual object at the secondposition and the second orientation and the movement of the targetvirtual object for reaching the second position and the secondorientation from the first position and the first orientation.

In a 72nd aspect, the method of aspect 71, wherein repositioning thetarget object comprises at least one of attaching the target object tothe destination object, reorienting the target object, or detaching thetarget object from the destination object.

In a 73rd aspect, the method of any one of aspects 71-72, the method ofclaim 14, wherein the destination object is a physical object.

In a 74th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 71-73, furthercomprising determining whether the indication to reposition the targetvirtual object meets a threshold condition; and performing saidcalculating, determining, and rendering in response to a determinationthat the indication meets the threshold condition.

In a 75th aspect, the method of any one of aspect 74, wherein thethreshold condition comprises a distance between the target virtualobject and the destination object.

In a 76th aspect, the method of any one of aspects 71-75, wherein one ormore physical attributes is assigned to the target virtual object, andthe movement of the target virtual object is determined by simulatinginteractions of the target virtual object, the destination object, andthe environment based on the physical attributes of the target virtualobject.

In a 77th aspect, the method of aspect 76, wherein the one or morephysical attributes assigned to the target virtual object comprises atleast one of a mass, a size, a density, a phase, a hardness, anelasticity, or an electromagnetic attribute.

Other Considerations

Each of the processes, methods, and algorithms described herein and/ordepicted in the attached figures may be embodied in, and fully orpartially automated by, code modules executed by one or more physicalcomputing systems, hardware computer processors, application-specificcircuitry, and/or electronic hardware configured to execute specific andparticular computer instructions. For example, computing systems caninclude general purpose computers (e.g., servers) programmed withspecific computer instructions or special purpose computers, specialpurpose circuitry, and so forth. A code module may be compiled andlinked into an executable program, installed in a dynamic link library,or may be written in an interpreted programming language. In someimplementations, particular operations and methods may be performed bycircuitry that is specific to a given function.

Further, certain implementations of the functionality of the presentdisclosure are sufficiently mathematically, computationally, ortechnically complex that application-specific hardware or one or morephysical computing devices (utilizing appropriate specialized executableinstructions) may be necessary to perform the functionality, forexample, due to the volume or complexity of the calculations involved orto provide results substantially in real-time. For example, a video mayinclude many frames, with each frame having millions of pixels, andspecifically programmed computer hardware is necessary to process thevideo data to provide a desired image processing task or application ina commercially reasonable amount of time.

Code modules or any type of data may be stored on any type ofnon-transitory computer-readable medium, such as physical computerstorage including hard drives, solid state memory, random access memory(RAM), read only memory (ROM), optical disc, volatile or non-volatilestorage, combinations of the same and/or the like. The methods andmodules (or data) may also be transmitted as generated data signals(e.g., as part of a carrier wave or other analog or digital propagatedsignal) on a variety of computer-readable transmission mediums,including wireless-based and wired/cable-based mediums, and may take avariety of forms (e.g., as part of a single or multiplexed analogsignal, or as multiple discrete digital packets or frames). The resultsof the disclosed processes or process steps may be stored, persistentlyor otherwise, in any type of non-transitory, tangible computer storageor may be communicated via a computer-readable transmission medium.

Any processes, blocks, states, steps, or functionalities in flowdiagrams described herein and/or depicted in the attached figures shouldbe understood as potentially representing code modules, segments, orportions of code which include one or more executable instructions forimplementing specific functions (e.g., logical or arithmetical) or stepsin the process. The various processes, blocks, states, steps, orfunctionalities can be combined, rearranged, added to, deleted from,modified, or otherwise changed from the illustrative examples providedherein. In some embodiments, additional or different computing systemsor code modules may perform some or all of the functionalities describedherein. The methods and processes described herein are also not limitedto any particular sequence, and the blocks, steps, or states relatingthereto can be performed in other sequences that are appropriate, forexample, in serial, in parallel, or in some other manner. Tasks orevents may be added to or removed from the disclosed exampleembodiments. Moreover, the separation of various system components inthe implementations described herein is for illustrative purposes andshould not be understood as requiring such separation in allimplementations. It should be understood that the described programcomponents, methods, and systems can generally be integrated together ina single computer product or packaged into multiple computer products.Many implementation variations are possible.

The processes, methods, and systems may be implemented in a network (ordistributed) computing environment. Network environments includeenterprise-wide computer networks, intranets, local area networks (LAN),wide area networks (WAN), personal area networks (PAN), cloud computingnetworks, crowd-sourced computing networks, the Internet, and the WorldWide Web. The network may be a wired or a wireless network or any othertype of communication network.

The systems and methods of the disclosure each have several innovativeaspects, no single one of which is solely responsible or required forthe desirable attributes disclosed herein. The various features andprocesses described above may be used independently of one another, ormay be combined in various ways. All possible combinations andsubcombinations are intended to fall within the scope of thisdisclosure. Various modifications to the implementations described inthis disclosure may be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, andthe generic principles defined herein may be applied to otherimplementations without departing from the spirit or scope of thisdisclosure. Thus, the claims are not intended to be limited to theimplementations shown herein, but are to be accorded the widest scopeconsistent with this disclosure, the principles and the novel featuresdisclosed herein.

Certain features that are described in this specification in the contextof separate implementations also can be implemented in combination in asingle implementation. Conversely, various features that are describedin the context of a single implementation also can be implemented inmultiple implementations separately or in any suitable subcombination.Moreover, although features may be described above as acting in certaincombinations and even initially claimed as such, one or more featuresfrom a claimed combination can in some cases be excised from thecombination, and the claimed combination may be directed to asubcombination or variation of a subcombination. No single feature orgroup of features is necessary or indispensable to each and everyembodiment.

Conditional language used herein, such as, among others, “can,” “could,”“might,” “may,” “e.g.,” and the like, unless specifically statedotherwise, or otherwise understood within the context as used, isgenerally intended to convey that certain embodiments include, whileother embodiments do not include, certain features, elements and/orsteps. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended toimply that features, elements and/or steps are in any way required forone or more embodiments or that one or more embodiments necessarilyinclude logic for deciding, with or without author input or prompting,whether these features, elements and/or steps are included or are to beperformed in any particular embodiment. The terms “comprising,”“including,” “having,” and the like are synonymous and are usedinclusively, in an open-ended fashion, and do not exclude additionalelements, features, acts, operations, and so forth. Also, the term “or”is used in its inclusive sense (and not in its exclusive sense) so thatwhen used, for example, to connect a list of elements, the term “or”means one, some, or all of the elements in the list. In addition, thearticles “a,” “an,” and “the” as used in this application and theappended claims are to be construed to mean “one or more” or “at leastone” unless specified otherwise.

As used herein, a phrase referring to “at least one of” a list of itemsrefers to any combination of those items, including single members. Asan example, “at least one of: A, B, or C” is intended to cover: A, B, C,A and B, A and C, B and C, and A, B, and C. Conjunctive language such asthe phrase “at least one of X, Y and Z,” unless specifically statedotherwise, is otherwise understood with the context as used in generalto convey that an item, term, etc. may be at least one of X, Y or Z.Thus, such conjunctive language is not generally intended to imply thatcertain embodiments require at least one of X, at least one of Y and atleast one of Z to each be present.

Similarly, while operations may be depicted in the drawings in aparticular order, it is to be recognized that such operations need notbe performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, orthat all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirableresults. Further, the drawings may schematically depict one more exampleprocesses in the form of a flowchart. However, other operations that arenot depicted can be incorporated in the example methods and processesthat are schematically illustrated. For example, one or more additionaloperations can be performed before, after, simultaneously, or betweenany of the illustrated operations. Additionally, the operations may berearranged or reordered in other implementations. In certaincircumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous.Moreover, the separation of various system components in theimplementations described above should not be understood as requiringsuch separation in all implementations, and it should be understood thatthe described program components and systems can generally be integratedtogether in a single software product or packaged into multiple softwareproducts. Additionally, other implementations are within the scope ofthe following claims. In some cases, the actions recited in the claimscan be performed in a different order and still achieve desirableresults.

What is claimed is:
 1. An augmented reality (AR) system comprising: ahardware computer processor; and a non-transitory computer readablemedium having software instructions stored thereon, the softwareinstructions executable by the hardware computer processor to cause theAR system to perform operations comprising: receive an indication from auser of the AR system to move a target virtual object included in avirtual environment of the user; determine a destination object withinthe virtual environment; calculate a trajectory between the targetvirtual object and the destination object in the virtual environment;generate and render on a display of the AR system movement of the targetvirtual object along the trajectory towards the destination object;determine a distance between the target virtual object and thedestination object; in response to determining that the distance of thetarget virtual object and the destination object is less than a firstthreshold distance, automatically orient the target virtual object inrelation to the destination object, wherein the first threshold distanceis based on a user preference associated with an orientation speed; andin response to determining that the distance of the target virtualobject and the destination object is less than a second thresholddistance, automatically attach the target virtual object to thedestination object, wherein the first threshold distance is greater thanthe second threshold distance.
 2. The AR system of claim 1, wherein saidautomatically orienting the target virtual object comprises rotating thetarget virtual object to align a first normal of the target virtualobject with a second normal of the destination object.
 3. The AR systemof claim 2, wherein characteristics of the rotation are determined basedon affordances of at least one of the target virtual object, thedestination object, or the virtual environment.
 4. The AR system ofclaim 3, wherein the affordances comprise at least one of: a function,an orientation, a type, a location, a shape, or a size.
 5. The AR systemof claim 1, wherein said automatically attaching the target virtualobject to the destination object comprises simulating an attractiveforce between the target virtual object and the destination object,wherein the attractive force comprises at least one of gravity, anelastic force, an adhesive force, or a magnetic attraction.
 6. The ARsystem of claim 1, wherein the software instructions are furtherconfigured to cause the AR system to: calculate the distance between thetarget virtual object and the destination object as a displacementbetween a location of the target virtual object and a location of thedestination object.
 7. The AR system of claim 1, wherein the secondthreshold distance is greater than zero.
 8. The AR system of claim 1,wherein the indication to move the target virtual object is determinedfrom at least one of: an actuation of a user input device or a pose of auser.
 9. The AR system of claim 1, wherein the software instructions arefurther configured to cause the AR system to: detect a detachmentindication from one or more user inputs; and initiate detachment of thetarget virtual object from the destination object.
 10. The AR system ofclaim 9, wherein the detachment indication is based on user inputsindicating one or more of: a speed of moving a focus indicator from adestination object location to another focus indicator location isgreater than a threshold speed; an acceleration of moving the focusindicator from the destination object location to the another focusindicator location is greater than a threshold acceleration; or a jerkfor moving the focus indicator away from the destination object locationis greater than a threshold jerk.
 11. The AR system of claim 10, whereinthe software instructions are further configured to cause the AR systemto: simulate a physical force when detaching the target virtual objectfrom the destination object, wherein the physical force comprises atleast one of a friction or an elasticity.
 12. The AR system of claim 1,wherein automatically attaching the target virtual object comprisesresizing the target virtual object.
 13. The AR system of claim 1,wherein the destination object is a physical object.
 14. The AR systemof claim 1, wherein said movement of the target virtual object comprisessimulating interactions of the target virtual object, the destinationobject, and the environment based on one or more attributes of thetarget virtual object.
 15. The AR system of claim 14, wherein the one ormore attributes of the target virtual object comprise at least one of amass, a size, a density, a phase, a hardness, an elasticity, or anelectromagnetic attribute.
 16. A computerized method, performed by anaugmented reality (AR) system having one or more hardware computerprocessors and one or more non-transitory computer readable storagedevice storing software instructions executable by the AR system toperform the computerized method comprising: receiving an indication froma user of the AR system to move a target virtual object included in avirtual environment of the user; determining a destination object withinthe virtual environment; calculating a trajectory between the targetvirtual object and the destination object in the virtual environment;generating and render on a display of the AR system movement of thetarget virtual object along the trajectory towards the destinationobject; determining a distance between the target virtual object and thedestination object; in response to determining that the distance of thetarget virtual object and the destination object is less than a firstthreshold distance, automatically orienting the target virtual object inrelation to the destination object, wherein the first threshold distanceis based on a user preference associated with an orientation speed; andin response to determining that the distance of the target virtualobject and the destination object is less than a second thresholddistance, automatically attaching the target virtual object to thedestination object, wherein the first threshold distance is greater thanthe second threshold distance.
 17. The computerized method of claim 16,wherein said automatically orienting the target virtual objectcomprises: rotating the target virtual object to align a first normal ofthe target virtual object with a second normal of the destinationobject.
 18. The computerized method of claim 17, wherein characteristicsof the rotation are determined based on affordances of at least one ofthe target virtual object, the destination object, or the virtualenvironment.
 19. The computerized method of claim 18, wherein theaffordances comprise at least one of a function, an orientation, a type,a location, a shape, or a size.
 20. The computerized method of claim 16,wherein said automatically attaching the target virtual object to thedestination object comprises simulating an attractive force between thetarget virtual object and the destination object, wherein the attractiveforce comprises at least one of gravity, an elastic force, an adhesiveforce, or a magnetic attraction.